MEMBERS OF THE BODY

MEMBERS OF THE BODY



                If you become sick and go to your doctor, he is going to check your vital signs. He will check your temperature and your pulse. He will check your eyes and ears and your reflexes. He will look at your tongue and your throat. He will run a blood test and he will listen to your lungs and your heartbeat. He may ask for a urine sample and ask you about your input (what you eat and drink) and your output in terms of exercise and elimination and so on.



                A church can also be examined by checking its vital signs. These vital signs would involve an inspection of the fruits of the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit. When you go to your doctor, he doesn’t ask you what you believe. He is not looking for your doctrine or where you go to church, he is rather checking to see how your body is functioning and if all of your vital signs are function together the way they should.



                When Jesus came to examine the 7 churches He states in Rev. 1:6 that He has made us a kingdom and priests, so His question was, how was the church doing? Were they operating in the same love? Was their lamp still burning brightly? Were the gifts of the Spirit and the fruit of the Spirit still operating in their midst? And why have they allowed the Nicolaitans to come in and rule over them rather than maintaining their direct relationship with Jesus? He was looking to see if their deeds were complete, even as He is asking us today… if we are standing true to the Lordship of Christ. He warns us against committing adultery with the world. He encourages us to remain faithful even in the midst of persecution and adversity. He warns us against the spirit of Jezebel, that is even now seeking control of our nation and even the church. And He warns us not to become lukewarm.



                Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit gave us various fruits and various gifts. Does it not make sense then, that in checking our vital signs, He would be looking for the fruit and for the gifts to be functioning in our midst as they were from the beginning? Fruit and gifts must work together.



                Nowhere in Scripture does it say that the gifts or the fruit of the Spirit will ever end, or become obsolete in the church until He returns and we don’t need some of them anymore. So until then, we can rightly ask ourselves concerning our church’s vital signs. We can determine the health of our church by whether the vital signs are alive and functioning or if they are lying dormant.



                1 Cor. chapter 12 gives us a list of 9 gifts and Galatians 5:22 gives us a list of the fruit. There are other gifts and other fruit listed in the Bible, but at the very least the gifts and fruit listed in these two places should be alive and functioning in the Body. The fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control should be evident in the Body of Christ. These are fruits of the Spirit and so we must realize that they only function properly if the Spirit is producing these things. The world’s version of these fruits is not enough. Our fruit must come from the active indwelling and power of the Holy Spirit. If the Law had been enough to produce these things then we would not have needed a New Covenant. The Law can demand love, but only the Spirit can produce it and so it is said that those who live by the Spirit of God are the sons (and daughters) of God.



                Likewise concerning the gifts of the Spirit… a church body is not healthy unless the gifts of the Spirit (Our vital signs) are all functioning together within the framework of love. It is love that motivates the use of the gifts, for the gifts meet the needs of the people. We need the gifts in order to function as a living Body of Christ… and yet how many churches have settled into a routine of mediocrity in which we no longer need the Holy Spirit simply because we are no longer operating in His gifts? We can carry on our program quite nicely whether the Holy Spirit shows up or not and so the sick remain sick. Supernatural words of wisdom and knowledge have devolved to the philosophies and traditions of men. Faith to move mountains is no longer needed. The people get sick and remain sick because the Supernatural gifts of healing no longer function in many circles… and even where they do function, there is a weakness. We rely heavily upon the natural realm of medicine.



                The last thing we expect when we go to church is to see anything even closely related to a real miracle. And as for the gift of prophecy… well that is not even talked about any more and is avoided in most circles as being taboo. And the gift of tongues and interpretation of tongues… well that too has been outlawed in most places so that most Christians would freak out if someone started to speak in tongues in their midst.



                How are we doing so far? Are we operating within the full spectrum of the vital signs that Jesus poured out upon the church on the day of Pentecost or are most of the vital signs missing and presumed dead?



                Now we know that the various gifts are distributed by the Holy Spirit as He wills. And people use that as an excuse as to why virtually none of the gifts are functioning in their church… and yet, would you want to try to live with most of your vital signs not functioning. Would you not be on your death bed if your vital signs were not functioning? Even the least of your vital signs, the ones we don’t like to talk about like say, urinating, will kill you fairly quickly if your kidneys stop functioning and you no longer pass urine. You will turn yellow and your heart and every other organ will start to shut down and some kind of action will have to be taken or you will die.



                So also, the vital signs, the least of them… the ones we don’t like to talk about will kill you just as quickly as other major vital signs like faith will kill the body if it does not exhibit faith.



                Some of the gifts of the Spirit are distributed to various members, such as gifts of healings and the gift of  prophecy… but gifts of faith and say the gift of tongues are ubiquitous and can be exhibited by all members alike. We must all have faith for without faith it is impossible to please God. Likewise the gift of tongues seems to have been received by all believers in the early church and it became a sign to the apostles that the Holy Spirit had been activated in people’s lives. We see this in Acts 19:2-6. And Acts 10:44-46



                Many churches feel that the gift of prophecy operates in their midst because they follow a prophet or a founder or a reformer and even though that person may be dead now, that qualifies as the church’s gift of prophecy. But that is not what is meant by the gift of prophecy. It is a gift that must be alive in the church at all times so that the church has eyes to see and ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches today. Not only that, but the church must be able to discern the times and understand the seasons in which we live and that requires the ongoing prophetic gift in our midst.



                The gift of prophecy also involves rightly interpreting the ever- current prophecies of the Bible in applying them to our times. Bible prophecy does not only apply to the coming of Christ, but has always served to make the Body aware of the seasons and the opportunities that arise with those seasons. We need to understand for instance if our vital signs are functioning properly or not. We need to understand if we are in a time of blessing or in a time of judgment. For instance, we have enjoyed a time of blessing for some time now, but we are rapidly entering a time of judgment and so our messages and our warnings must fit the times.



                Many so called prophets these days are misreading the signs of the times and they are still talking prosperity when they should be talking about repentance and turning back to the Lord and to our first love for judgment is about to fall on a sleeping and lukewarm church.



                We need our vital signs back and one of them is the gift of tongues. It is an entry level gift that opens up the other gifts to us and I want to explain how that works in as few words as possible.



                When we speak in our normal language, our speech comes from our mind. Our speech is based in the mind and comes for from the mind, but the gift of tongues is based in our spirit and comes forth from our spirit. Therefore God has lovingly given us the gift of tongues so that we can move from mind based worship to spirit based worship. To be sure, the gift of tongues cuts right across our intellectual pride and that is why so many refuse the gift. They make a doctrine out of not speaking in tongues because it is an affront to their mind based religion.



                But God is Spirit and those that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in truth. We don’t throw away the mind, for truth is from the mind while spirit is from the spirit. This is why Paul says that he will pray with his spirit and he will pray with his mind also. 1 Cor. 14:13-15.



                Still others will openly defy the Bible by saying that the gift of tongues is only the gift of other known languages, but they don’t get that from the Bible. If it was the gift of another known language then we would not need an interpreter. For instance if you went to China and God gave you the gift of Chinese then you would not need an interpreter would you? Furthermore Paul explains it to us in bold and unmistakable words saying: “For one who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men, but to God; for NO ONE UNDERSTANDS, but in his spirit he speaks mysteries.



                In public then we prophesy so that everyone can understand, but in our private prayers we pray in the spirit for the edifying or building up of our own spirit. Here again some have had the audacity to say that edifying our own spirit is selfish. If so, then why did God give us this gift? The question is what do you have to give to others if your own spirit is weak and non- functioning. We need to build up our own spirit as well as to build up others spirits. We need that well of living water that flows from our innermost being just as Jesus promised. John 7:38. Do we think that this is a side issue?



                Jude tells us in Jude 19, 20 saying: “These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit, but you beloved, build yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Spirit.”



                In other words praying in the spirit strengthens and builds up our spirit so that we gain strength to live in the spirit and not in the sensual realm of the flesh. We also gain spiritual power to help others.



                Personally I think that a lot of us need to give up our intellectual pride and to pray and ask the Lord for this gift of the Spirit so that we can move from a strictly intellectual religion and into a spiritual walk with the Lord, for those who worship Him must worship in Spirit and in truth.



                So if we take the vital signs of the church today we will find that we have a form of godliness, but deny the power therein. Many Christians today, sensing the times in which we live are crying out for  a more intimate connection with Jesus through His Holy Spirit and yet they cling to doctrines that hold the Holy Spirit at bay. In our intellectual pride we want to tell the Lord what He can and can’t do.



                Isn’t it time to become honest with the Word of God and to believe it exactly as it speaks rather than forcing it to say what we want it to say? We have imposed our own will upon God’s Word and therefore we have become miserable and blind and poor and naked. We think that we are rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing, and yet we are living Christian lives virtually devoid of the Spirit of God. We are perhaps holding tight to our denominational bylaws, but we are not doing any of the works of Christ in the world are we?



                We can’t say with Peter, “Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have I give to you, rise and walk.” Acts 3:6. Today we would have to say, “Silver and gold I have plenty, but there is no way I can tell you to rise and walk.” So tell me, which one has the better prosperity? Is it the one with the silver and gold, or the one that can tell people to rise and walk and see it happen? We are looking for the wrong kind of prosperity today.



                Now you must understand that I am not one who is talking about these things as if I have arrived. What I am saying is that we need to take the words of the Bible more seriously and we need to press into God for power to do the works of Christ in the world and even greater works just as He promised. And we need true maturity and humility so that when we do receive power, we will not abuse and misuse it. We have lost our hunger for the deep things of God. We are happy to bat around our intellectual ideas and doctrines, but we spend very little time in our prayer closet crying out to be more like Jesus or to do what He commissioned us to do.



                Spreading our brand of doctrine is not enough. We need to learn to operate in the Spirit and to do the works of Christ in the way He told us to do it… and for that… we need His power and His Holy Spirit.