Jesus Great Commission to His church: Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20.

He is the head of His church, the people who are His disciples. We are His body. We are the hands and feet of Jesus. Our purpose is to love and help other people, just as He did. And to tell them about Him.

A deacon in our church gave a homily one day on the way we can ‘meet Christ’ in the people we have to deal with in our daily life. He was a ‘homeless counselor’ and met a homeless man with EVERYTHING going AGAINST HIM … but that man ‘loved God’ so much that he ‘didn’t mind’ all of the ‘bad things’ that came to him, because he said ‘maybe that means someone else is having a totally good life … and that is all I really need.’ I think about that all the time … I’ve been homeless and so has my husband … we now have a ‘very good life’ and we try to ‘give to charities that help the homeless’ … whether they want ‘off the street’ or just need ‘a little help’ to continue to live ‘on the street.’ Maybe in that way, we are being ‘The Body of Christ’ too … but we don’t ‘count on it’ and so we ‘pray’ all the time, in all places, when we ‘feel the urge’ … to do ‘good’ to all people, in every ‘circumstance’ …

Hebrews Chapter 11 is one of my favorite places for this type of discussion. It is important that people understand that chapters and versus were added much later and so the beginning of a new chapter does not necessarily denote a “different train of thought” as it does in our culture.

Beginning in chapter 11 we see Paul discuss faith and then delineates an array of saints and heroes. Now here is where it gets interesting…these saints are all dead in the flesh and yet the scripture reads in verse 39, ” Yet they did not receive what God had promised, because God had decided on an even better paln for us. His purpose was that only in company with us would they be made perfect.” Chapter 12 starts by saying, ” As for us, we have this great cloud of witnesses around us (what cloud? these very saints!) …….and let us run with determination the racethat lies before us….) The imagery is that of a sports arena – they have finished their own races and now are cheering us on to finish our own. Every heard of the home field advantage? This is God’s image for us – we are not in this alone – we are in it together -in fact their perfection and our own is not complete until the last runner has finished the race. This is what we read in many of the ancient creeds as the Communion of Saints (a Common Union). It is an image of relationship and family, of Covenant not Court Rooms.

I did not quote more due to lack of space but re-read the chapters (11 & 12) slowly and you will gain a new/deeper perpective on this issue.

God Bless……

First of all we need to know that in the basics we should as Christians agree on the Christian statement on faith. The Trinity, Salvation, Christ as the Son of God… etc.

Then just like an eye or a mouth, we all have different callings, and ways we worship, pray, and bring compassion to a hurting world. One person might have a calling with healing, another leading worship and another encouragement. We shouldn’t long for another’s calling but grow our own. Nor as a body of Christ should we put down others for liking one type of music over another. Which does happen sadly.

And this just doesn’t happen to individuals but to church groups as well. Some Churches might be called to inner city missions, and some to Peru. So to yearn for another church’s mission isn’t good. But to grow your Churches mission is best.

We as Christians need to work together as a body. All striving for one goal, but each in their own way. Working together as one with different functions. So we as Christians should put away our bitterness and pride so as we can work as one together just like Christ called for. He prayed that we would work in unity.

I am a believer in Jesus Christ, God’s son, … there are other believers…We are the church together. A relationship with Christ is a lifelong journey…a journey you were never intended to travel alone.

The Church today is a divided body of Christ because of the pride and arrogance of those whom THE LORD GOD has entrusted HIS BODY- The church. One with the spirit given by the grace of THE LORD GOD, the church is one under THE UNITY OF THE FAITH which THE LORD GOD IS ONE; and the church is ONE GOD AND FATHER; ONE LORD AND SAVIOR; ONE FAITH AND BAPTISM. Then you, with the grace of GOD, can say to the members of all Christian churches like Baptist, Anglican, Proestant, Catholics, Mormons, Orthodox, Hebrew oriented christian churches, Scientology, science churches, churches of GOD, Pentecostals, Fundamentals, Jehovah Witnesses, YOU ARE MY BROTHERS/ SISTERS in CHRIST. You are that one who is a Christian in the spirit without walls of division and without walls of hostility-being the true christians. This is so as THE LORD JESUS CHRIST is the ONE WHO breaches the walls of divisions and walls of hostilities amolng HIS DIVIDED PEOPLES under HIS FOLD- The Christians. The others are under ONE GOD. THANK GOD; FEAR GOD; PRAISE GOD;GLORIFY GOD; HONOR GOD AND WORSHIP GOD.

The objective of the allegoric Body of Christ(it’s allegoric Head) is to obediently take our Head(Christ: the end of the law) and his Head(the God of all grace) where it told us all to go, to the grace us end where none perish because there is no cancer us L-w there at all:

The GRACE of our Lord Jesus Christ with you all. Amen.

I like your concept.. it reminds me of THE HOLY SPIRIT. How we are to understand through the HOLY SPIRIT and HIS powerful presence.. the language of spirituality is easier to understand this way. To be like CHRIST. that is what you are discribing. And through the presence of the HOLY SPIRIT in our lives we attain to the level where GOD lives in us and thru us, just as HE did in CHRIST.

I know you don’t want snide answers, but the question is a bit open to at least some questioning back…

The Church is indeed an organization, made up of humans and all their frailties. I am not sure that you have established firmly that the goal is not getting to heaven. Nearly all the books of the new testament say that we get our reward through everlasting life, after death, correct? Whether one believes that the organiic body of christ can actually be constituted in a brick and motar building is kind of moot…the church is the people, and as believers, we have to follow what Christ directed. If you want to know how to do that, then I would say, read what Christ said, and put up what Paul and Peter and others said after his death.

The only way for Christians to truly be part of the “body of Christ”, as you put it, is to emulate him. And I believe firmly that is the only way to reach the goal of our existence. Paul had a lot to say about how we should live our lives…the later church had even more to say about what it was to be a good Christian…mostly, they have taken heaven away from us and placed it on a hill somewhere…a place to be achieved, to strive for…something that is not ours through our birthright. But, it is our birthright. Jesus taught that the kingdom of heaven is within each of us, not out there somewhere to be earned by listening to our church leaders. If we needed the Church to attain heaven, or to attain the kind of life Jesus wanted us to have, then nobody would have, or COULD have, been saved during the days of Jesus.

Jesus did not say “believe in my church”…he said to believe in him. Jesus had enough messages for us to follow that we can’t achieve today…why do we need another long list of items that some set of men (some of whom were power and political brokers of their day) put together? Why does the church, in so many different ways, fly in the face of what Jesus taught? Did Jesus say to persecute those who are different? What did Jesus say about our enemies? What is it he had to say about the rich and powerful? Yet time after time, churches all over the world have stressed wealth, power, exclusion, judgement, and on and on.

What Christians need to do is focus not on what others say Christ meant…we need to focus on his words of encouragement, his words of candor, his words of hope. Read the sermon on the mount…what words of hate and vitriol were present? What words of judgement did he have? And what words of advice did he have for us to live by?

The church of today is riddled with the boasting and posturing of men of power. So little thought is given to what Jesus taught to his disciples, but so much is brought to bear on what those disciples had to say. Keep in mind, they were fallable right to the end…when Christ was taken, none of them stood firm…they quailed with fear. Not a one was able to be as Christ was. Why do we listen, then, to their direction, while Christ had so much to say that we conveniently ignore.

We are left with the truth…Christ, if you believe in him at all, was the Son of Man, a light for the world, with a way of life that was selfless, frugal, generous, and miraculous. If we could simply follow what he asked us to, we would be in such a better world….

Renaissanceman, you make my point for me…the question is about how we become members in the body of Christ…yet you talk about Paul and Paul’s view. What was Christ’s view on what it took to be Christian? He had many words of what it meant, but here you quote Paul, and Paul’s understanding of the situation. Paul never knew Jesus…so what words would be a better source for the intent of Jesus….Paul of Jesus himself?

I think that this is the challenge of the current church…the promotion of the ideas of Christ over the ideas of the Church.