One Body, Different Work.

Ephesians 4:1-16
1 Therefore I, a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God. 2 Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. 3 Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace. 4 For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future. 5 There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 and one God and Father, who is over all and in all and living through all.
7 However, he has given each one of us a special gift through the generosity of Christ. 8 That is why the Scriptures say,
“When he ascended to the heights,
he led a crowd of captives
and gave gifts to his people.”
9 Notice that it says “he ascended.” This clearly means that Christ also descended to our lowly world. 10 And the same one who descended is the one who ascended higher than all the heavens, so that he might fill the entire universe with himself.
11 Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. 12 Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. 13 This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.
14 Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. 15 Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. 16 He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.

This is probably one of the largest passages I've given you to read yet, but I believe it's important. Each sentence builds on the previous one and the last section says a lot: "Each part does its own special work..."

We are called by God to use our gifts as a body to do the work of the Kingdom. There's a very important part that isn't mentioned in the statement above which you can infer the passage is calling Christians to do. That is, to attract others to work in the Kingdom.

Don't pull them in by their ears. However, teach them about Christ as we've been talking about over the past couple days and tell them that each person has a unique and important role in the Kingdom of God. Even though there may not be many things to do in your mind, each person can take something simple and make it fit the person who they are called to be.

I'll try to have some spiritual gift resources available soon!

Refer to the February 4th post and listen to the song "If We Are The Body." It's once again fitting. It's always good to apply songs to your spiritual life. You'll notice it's not going to be the same interpretation every time. It really depends on what God is teaching you at the moment.

"God has huge plans for the world today! He is not content to merely establish a handful of struggling churches among each tongue, tribe and nation. Even now He is preparing and empowering His Church to carry the seeds of revival to the uttermost ends of the earth." ~David Smithers