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How many organs in the body could you live without?
“You can still have a fairly normal life without one of your lungs, a kidney, your spleen, appendix, gall bladder, adenoids, tonsils, plus some of your lymph nodes, the fibula bones from each leg and six of your ribs. Losing your uterus, ovaries and breasts, or your testicles and prostate, is also quite survivable, although you might need hormone therapy to avoid other long-term problems, such as brittle bones. If you allow yourself artificial replacements and medication, we can go further and remove your stomach, colon, pancreas, salivary glands, thyroid, bladder and your other kidney. Still not enough for you? Theoretically, surgeons could amputate all of your limbs, and remove your eyes, nose, ears, larynx, tongue, lower spine and rectum. Supported by machines in an intensive care unit, they could also take away your skull, heart and your remaining lung, at least for a short while. This adds up to a theoretically survivable loss of around 45 per cent of your total body mass. But any trauma that destroyed all these organs all at once would almost certainly kill you from shock and blood loss. And surgically removing them one at a time over many months would likely also be fatal, due to infections in your immune-compromised state.”
Jesus Christ said: "I will build my Church." What is that church? How does one become a member? Does it have a purpose—and, if so, how is it carried out? By organization, or by individuals acting independently in competition—like severed body parts? “The Body” is laid out—mutilated with severed limbs, organs removed and bleeding. Graphic…yes! But let’s take our feelings, opinions and justifications out of it and go straight to the Bible (John 10:35) before it’s too late and God is forced to use a “rock” or an “ass” instead! Something is very wrong, and we all know it or at least we should as we feel the bodies blood pressure steadily dropping.
“For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body" (I Cor. 12:13). It is God who puts one into His Church. How? By His Spirit! Therefore, note well, we cannot of ourselves join God’s Church. The church is here referred to as "one Body," which numerous scriptures bear out (1 Cor. 12:12). How is the church the "Body of Christ?" God sent Jesus into the world to commence His Work. At a young age, Jesus told His parents: “…Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” (Luke 2:49). What was His father's business—the Work of God? The Father sent His Son into this world with a fully intact human fleshly body—as a Messenger with a message (Mal. 3:1). What was that message? It was the good news of the Kingdom of God (Mark 1:1, 2, 14). Jesus’ work consisted of proclaiming this message and teaching His disciples the same message (Luke 9:1-2). Jesus was healthy, He was strong, His body complete and He was able to accomplish His purpose up to the bitter end!
What is the commission of the church? To proclaim this same message as a witness to the world. We are to carry on the Work of God, which Jesus, in person, had started (Mark 16:15). Jesus Himself stated: “I can of my own self do nothing.” It was the power of the Holy Spirit, dwelling in His whole human body, doing the Work. On the day of Pentecost in 31 A.D., this same power of God was made available to the collective “Body”—the church—that now is to carry on the same Work of God. The church is composed of those members (organs, limbs, toes, fingers and etc.) who are the begotten children of God—one is begotten upon faith, repentance, baptism and the laying on of hands (Acts 2:38). We cannot join the church like a medical doctor performing an organ transplant while slurping a cocktail of Tacrolimus, Prednisone, Mycophenolate, Sirolimus and Everolimus to stay alive. God places us into His church by the indwelling power of His Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:14).
What is the foundation of the church? Read Ephesians 2:19-20. God’s one and true church is not a corporation of man, but a spiritual organism existing for the purpose of fulfilling the Work of God. However, (and this is where many fail) that fact does not negate organization. Jesus Christ is the Head of the church, and He did give it a definite form (1 Cor. 12). The very fact the church has a Head implies organization. The living Christ directs, guides and inspires—and He used to bless the church—His Body—in doing God's Work. He is the Vine and we the branches (John 15:1-8).
We have numerous bodily systems working within each of us, which includes the skeletal, nervous, muscular, respiratory, endocrine, immune, cardiovascular/circulatory, urinary, integumentary, reproductive, and digestive. When each of these systems are working properly together, we have a healthy, strong and viable body and life. As the “Body of Christ,” supposedly with God’s Holy Spirit and supposedly called out of this world to be different—we must be joined together as a unified system; otherwise, we are sick and can produce nothing of significance. Look around and you will see the fruits bear this out! The entire Work of God functions with the aim of restoring what has been taken away—God’s government on this earth. The Kingdom of God is the government of God and it is organized as the church should be today! Tragically, we find severed organs and limbs, laying around everywhere. The church is to be the collective “Body of Christ” used as His instrument, empowered by God’s Holy Spirit, to carry out the Work. Jesus is the Head, and we make up the many members of His Body, for a purpose and function, as God places us. How long do we have? Will we bleed out before the return of Jesus Christ? Can anyone even recognize Christ’s Body anymore? “…So His visage was marred more than any man…” (Isa. 52:14). Is this our goal once again today? Why are we severing His Body and attempting to kill Him again: “For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all…” (Rom. 6:10).
“But, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love” (Eph. 4:15-16). If every individual continues to do his own thing and teach his own version—watering down the truth as taught by God’s apostle, then we shall have confusion and the one body sickened with many severed parts as we view today. Seemingly, it’s always easier to loosen up than to tighten up. Have you ever tried to put the toothpaste back into the tube? God calls this spiritual organism “the Body of Christ” (1 Cor. 12:20-27). That “Body” should never be divided for the very reason it is the “Body of Christ,” and His “Body” cannot be severed, any more than a human body can be sliced and diced into separate parts, and still survive, at least indefinitely. Jesus said God’s “Church” cannot die or be destroyed (Matt. 16:18), so there must be hope.
“Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isa 53:4-6). When will each of us stop going our own way? When will we realize the Body is bleeding to death and we must stop it?
How many churches are there? The whole of the New Testament only speaks of one “Body”—one church and not “churches of God” as we often hear spoken today. God is not confused and divided (1 Cor. 1:13). There is one true church and those in it are commanded to “speak the same thing” (1 Cor. 1:10). We are to come out of this world (Rev. 18:4) and we are to be ambassadors for another land (2 Cor. 5:20). It is to be, as Jesus said, a "little flock," persecuted and despised by the world. How will this be when we appear and act just like them—except, of course, we go to church on a different day? Prognosis—the body still bleeds on a Saturday! Paul states: “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:13). What did Jesus pray (John 17:6-11)? Is God’s Church today one single, unified Church of God, or are God’s people distributed among different corporations skewing the truth as they see it? Why do we see such carnage today? When will we stop purporting our own opinions and insisting, “Here’s the way I see it” and thereby continually severing Jesus’ Body? When will we stop rejecting God’s government, which teaches truth—from the Father—to the Son—and through His apostles?
Jesus told us He would establish “one Church”— “one Body”—and “one Bride”—and not many churches or a harem? He will marry only one—God is not a polygamist! Why are there so many “splinter groups,” all professing to obey God—yet, none can agree? Why are the kidneys, pancreas and toes fighting with each other for prideful supremacy? We are all members of one “Body” of which Jesus is the Head. How do we make sense of today’s “Church of God” man-made bloody mess? How do we take what is left of a severed and weakened body and fulfill our commission? It begins with each of us as members of that one “Body.” We begin by waking up, repenting, returning, contending, studying and demanding the truth as taught by God’s apostle! We ask God, in prayer, in this end time to mend this severed body that we may fulfill the very purpose for which our Father called us (John 6:44)!
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