You Are The Body Of Christ
For just as the body is one and has
many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it
is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body – Jews
or Greeks, slaves or free – and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.
Indeed, the body does not consist of
one member but of many. If the foot would say, “Because I am not a hand, I do
not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body.
And if the ear would say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the
body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body
were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where
would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God arranged the members in the
body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would
the body be? As it is, there are many members, yet one body. The eye cannot say
to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have
no need of you.” On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be
weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less
honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members do not
need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the
inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the
members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all
suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with
it.
Now you are the body of Christ and
individually members of it.
Are you grieved when a brother or
sister in Christ is in trouble? Does it bother you when a believer stumbles
into sin and is brought under the chastening hand of the LORD? Do you
experience sorrow of heart when a child of God is passing through deep waters
of affliction and trial? If not, ask the Lord right now to help you become the
kind of person who can share the heartache of others and sympathize with them.
Empathy = your pain in my heart.
Our Daily
Bread –