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Members
One Of Another
"So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every
one members one of another." (Romans 12:5). In these
words we have a picture of the oneness of the people of
God. They are one body. This is the body of Christ.
Saints, God's holy people, constitute His body. He dwells
in this body (Eph. 1:23; 2 Cor. 6:16). The apostle
illustrates this by the human body (1 Cor. 12:14-24). We
can learn many a lesson about the body of Christ—the
Church of God—by the study of the human body. Paul here
says (v. 26), "And whether one member suffer, all the
members suffer with it; or one member be honored, all the
members rejoice with it." These words, perhaps,
express as great depth of this oneness as any other words
in this illustration. This experience is true in the real
body of Christ. If one saint suffers all the other saints
suffer with this suffering one. Let us examine our
experience. When one member is honored all the members
rejoice with the honored one. We ought not to pass over
this indifferently. There is a solemn truth here. We
should not say it is true in our life if it is not really
true. If the feet of your body are honored with a nice
pair of shoes, see how rejoicing the hands go to work to
place these shoes upon the feet. It is so in the body of
Christ. Suppose you have held a prominent position in the
Church. The time comes when you must surrender it to
another. Do you do so rejoicingly? Man can say that he
does it rejoicingly when in the heart it is not true. We
ought not to be satisfied unless it is as true as heaven
in our heart. Suppose you were aspiring for a position,
but it is given to another. Do you rejoice in your heart?
It is that way in the human body, and it is even more so
in the Church of God. Suppose you are given $100.00. You
rejoice. Why do you rejoice? Do you rejoice because of
what use you can make of this money for your own
convenience and need? You should rejoice because of what
use you can make of it in honoring or glorifying Christ.
This should be the sole cause of your rejoicing. Let me
tell you how you can discover whether you rejoice in it
for this one cause. Suppose the $100 be given to another
who will use it to glorify God equally as much as you, do
you rejoice just as much as if it had been given to you?
If not, you are not measuring fully to 1 Cor. 12:26.
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