We Are One...Everybody
He has Risen
We still by tradition, reflect on He is risen. Interesting enough we don’t focus enough on and celebrate the messages He left us as the focal point to our becoming as He was with the Father.
I present to you one of the main focal point of His message that was the glue to us Representing and representing His message to the body of Christ.
Chris said “I will no longer be in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to You. Holy Father, protect them by Your name, the name You gave Me, so that they may be one as We are one”.
I must confess:
It took me some season and growth to finally understand what it meant to be one in the body. It wasn’t until I stopped listening to others and began to study to show myself approved unto God, that the enlightenment came.
One Body but Many Parts
1 Corinthians 12:12-27
There is one body, but it has many parts. But all its many parts make up one body. It is the same with Christ. We were all baptized by one Holy Spirit. And so, we are formed into one body. It didn’t matter whether we were Jews or Gentiles, slaves, or free people. We were all given the same Spirit to drink. So, the body is not made up of just one part. It has many parts. You are not made special because you hold a particular position and or function, you are supposed to be join to the body not the body joined to you.
Ephesians 4:16
From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows, and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
New Living Translation 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
Suppose the foot says, “I am not a hand. So, I don’t belong to the body.” By saying this, it cannot stop being part of the body. And suppose the ear says, “I am not an eye. So, I don’t belong to the body.” By saying this, it cannot stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, how could it hear? If the whole body were an ear, how could it smell? God has placed each part in the body just as he wanted it to be. If all the parts were the same, how could there be a body? As it is, there are many parts. But there is only one body.
The eye can’t say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” The head can’t say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” In fact, it is just the opposite. The parts of the body that seem to be weaker are the ones we can’t do without. The parts that we think are less important we treat with special honor. The private parts aren’t shown. But they are treated with special care.
Listen Linda Listens
The parts that can be shown don’t need special care. But God has put together all the parts of the body. And he has given more honor to the parts that didn’t have any. In that way, the parts of the body will not take sides. All of them will take care of one another. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it. If one part is honored, every part shares in its joy.
We are the body of Christ. Each one of us is a part of it.
Just as each of us has one body with many members, and not all members have the same function, so in Christ we who are many are one body, and each member belongs to one another. We have different gifts according to the grace given us. If one’s gift is prophecy, let him use it in proportion to his faith; …
What have we missed
The Answer
For everybody and everybody. But what does this even mean? Great question, and I have a conclusion to the Answer.
Over the last several decades of studying and researching and experiences withing the body of Christ. I have concluded that everybody and everyone are unique, and everybody and everyone has unique wants, needs, and desires. We are all growing within the sphere of our potential and predetermined purpose.
The strength and weakness relative to growth is a process. The scripture extends across decades to the strength and conditioning, of the saints. And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. Romans 5:3-5 NKJV
We glory in tribulations also; not only notwithstanding our tribulations (these do not hinder our rejoicing in hope of the glory of God), but even in our tribulations, as they are working for us the weight of glory, 2 Co. 4:17. Observe, What a growing increasing happiness the happiness of the saints is: Not only so. One would think such peace, such grace, such glory, and such a joy in hope of it, were more than such poor undeserving creatures as we are could pretend to; and yet it is not only so: there are more instances of our happiness-we glory in tribulations also, especially tribulations for righteousness' sake, which seemed the greatest objection against the saints' happiness, whereas really their happiness did not only consist with, but take rise from, those tribulations. They rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer, Acts 5:41. This being the hardest point, he sets himself to show the grounds and reasons of it. How come we to glory in tribulations? Why, because tribulations, by a chain of causes, greatly befriend hope, which he shows in the method of its influence.
A Closer look
Define: Everybody
Let’s look at the first “everybody.” Who is that? It is you; it is me, it is literally everybody. Many of us are working toward discipleship within the body from different aspect but towards the goal of the cross not a performance on stage.
This just begins to scratch the surface of the unique nature of us the one body which encompasses everybody. Each one of us has also had a unique upbringing, from where we were born, what year we were born in, to whom we were born to. All of these factors contribute to the unique nature of who we are and what we want, need, and desire to get out of this life.
Every One
Now let’s look at the second “everyone,” with a huge emphasis on the “body.” Each part has a unique height, weight, bone density, skin tone, hair color, eye color, flexibility, blood type, metabolic rate, and hormone level. This amazing fact is one thing that makes life such a beautiful experience and working out a completely unique experience. Variety is the spice of life.
The Gifts of the Body.” The Holy Spirit has specially empowered and enabled those of us who belong to Jesus Christ to carry out some very, very important functions. Now, by way of introduction, some thoughts. God wants to reach this whole world with His truth. Obviously. In the Old Testament, Israel was God’s vehicle to reach the world. In the Gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Christ Himself and His disciples were the vehicle to reach the world. Today, and since the 2 Chapter of Acts, right up until today, the Church is the vehicle through which God has designed to communicate to the world.
And it is not only by the words that we say that we communicate, but it is also by what we are that we communicate. And that’s the reason that Jesus said in John 13, “By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, that you have” – what? – “love one for another.” And also in John 17 that all men would know that the Father sent Christ if we were one. And He prayed that they may be one, “That all men might know that the Father sent Me.”
Our witness then is not only a verbal witness, but also a communication of the Gospel in specifics, it is the witness of love and unity. And when we are one in love, the world will find our witness devastating. And so, the Church then is the vehicle by which God designed to communicate to the world His nature and His truth. And that’s been the case since the 2nd chapter of Acts, when the Church was begun on the day of Pentecost. A unity within the Church on the basis of humility and love becomes then our greatest testimony. But needless to say, although all believers are one in terms of position, that is 1 Corinthians 12:13 says – you have it right there – “By one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jew, Greek, bond, free; we’ve all been made to drink into one Spirit.” So, though we are one in position, thought we have been made one in terms of the Holy Spirit’s ministry and salvation and putting us into the body of Christ, though we are one in fact, we are not one terms of our activities or our actions. And we certainly are not one in spirit and witness.
Christianity’s testimony has been decimated because it has been fractioned and hacked up into pieces, and you’ve got this little group over here, and this little group over here, and that big group over there, and so forth and so on. And people stand up and say that we’re this, and we do that, and it’s all fractioned. Consequently, though we are one in position, the world does not see us in practice, and we do not have a singular testimony of humility and love. Now you know that if God wants us to be one, that Satan wants us not to be one. And so, while the prayer of Christ was that we would be one, while the activity of the Spirit was to make us one, all of the energy of Satan is to fraction us. So, whenever you come into a situation where you or me or anybody else is a divisive issue, we can be assured, if it’s in the body of Christ, that we are the agent of Satan because Christ wants to unify; Satan wants to divide.
I confess
For many years I operated under a belief system that there was “a right way to do something and a wrong way to do something.” I tried to conform all my friends’ exercises to look the same, be done at the same tempo, and with the same range of motion. At first this seemed to make sense — there would be a standard to a movement— until I started becoming aware that each person I ministered to had a unique range of motion that was a factor of their unique body; not only so but each had a different bent factor towards life with their own experience reflective to the season and growth pattern they are in. This factor could come from the flexibility of the muscles, the mobility of the ligaments and tendons, the length of the bones, or any past experience that they may have had that has affected their body in an individual way.
To go along with this, there are many different ways to train the muscles based on the goals each person has. Some exercises are better to be done slowly and concentrated, while other exercises are designed to be fast and powerful. The right option is the one that is designed for the way someone wants to perform, which can change from day to day, month to month, and year to year. Each part of the body grows based on how it is attached to the body and the function of that part.
The Answer
Through the years of studying and working out I have been blessed to train my body and understand things take time and each decade the training and the studying takes on a different connotation.
“Am I doing this right?” Over that time, my answer has evolved to what I believe today in Christ: Everybody and everybody are unique, and everybody and everyone has unique wants, needs, and desires, so please do what is true, genuine, and authentic to you.
There are some standard things that I encourage all to do through each movement, such as having length through the spine, keeping the head and neck in a neutral alignment, and going through a range of motion that feels good in their body. Then, I ask; take this same approach towards your walk as followers of Christ the same way. How does it feel to be knowledgeable and happy both naturally and spiritually? That should be your objectives for each day.
Ultimately, our goal as disciples is to help each one creates an intimate relationship with the body. The spiritual body of Christ as a barometer for the love we are supposed to have one towards another. It is incredibly intelligent, and it can help guide everybody; every one of us through life. The more intimacy (Philio/Agape) the more we create within the body, the joy and fulfilment in Christ we will see in each aspect life.
By setting an intention going into each day in self perspective i.e., everyone, you are then able to identify what our body wants, needs, and desires to get out of the training for the day. Sometimes it is fast and heavy. Sometimes it is slow and steady.
A Common Ground
Now that we have covered how each one of us is unique, let’s shine some light on how each one of us is the same. We can all benefit from a healthy mind and body.
A strong core and lower body strength are valuable in all aspects of life. The professional athlete needs it to perform the quick, explosive moments that are often asked of the body, and the grandma or grandpa need the lower body and core strength to work in the garden or pursue anything in their life with ease.
This is why I love to utilize The Answer Movement in all of my training programs. The Answer take each day in the NOW Moment…No Other Way. You will conquer when you lengthen the spine, strengthens the core, and empowers the quads and glutes, all while allowing everyone within the body to grow together for the benefit of the cross.