The Church

"Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. Fro we are all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body-whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free-and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many."

1 Cor 12:12-13

Growing up, I had always heard the body of Christ described as one specific church, or if we were to get reaaallly crazy, our entire denomination, but it was a rare occasion, if it ever happened, to hear it on any larger level.

It was always preached that everyone played a part in the church, and we always needed people to step up and take a place because that is what made us a church family, and we would regularly fellowship together as a church, and even with other churches in our denomination, but I don't remember a single time in my entire childhood that we worshiped, or had fellowships with churches outside of our denomination.

How ridiculous is that?

God's divine words say that,

^{"The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you" On the contrary, those parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.}

^{Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.}

1 Cor 12:21-27

Guess what guys, as long as we

"confess with [our] mouth[s] Jesus is Lord and believe in [our] heart[s] that God raised Him from the dead [we] WILL BE SAVED. With the heart one believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth one confesses, resulting in salvation."

Romans 10:9-10

That means that Baptist, Catholic, Methodist, Jew, Pentecostal, any other denomination you could POSSIBLY imagine, is perfectly capable of being a part of the body of Christ!

*Let me clarify for anyone who may misinterpret that last sentence. What I am saying is it doesn't matter what building you worship in, or what title you give yourself, as long as you follow Romans 10 you are a part of the body of Christ! Though some people may see the name of a specific denomination in that sentence and say, "that's not possible" what I'm saying is there are exceptions to every denomination! I can be Catholic and REBEL against the rule that says I must go through a priest to confess my sins. I could probably come up with a similar scenario for every one of those denominations, that's just the easiest one to use for this explanation.*

It doesn't matter what church you worship at, if you have done what Romans 10 says you ARE a part of the body of Christ, and how phenomenal would it be if the world saw us as ONE BODY?!

How differently do you think people would view followers of Christ if we learned to set aside those nitpicky things and WORSHIP OUR CREATOR TOGETHER!! What kind of a worship experience could that be?

I think God would be on his massive heavenly throne filled with joy and delight as His creation began TRULY loving one another the way He wants to teach us to love!

I am challenging you to back down next time someone wants to fight about whether or not you are allowed to consume alcohol, or whether or not you should go to church on Sunday, Saturday, or any other day of the week. Back down next time someone wants to fight about if it was Adam's fault or Eve's.

IT DOESN'T MATTER!!!! What matters is that the world sees us as ONE body, unified against the darkness that surrounds our entire existence! Satan doesn't want us to ban together because he knows how disasterous it would be for him.

Arise as one body and one church

"But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the One who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light."

-1Peter 2:9