Are you on God’s team? Good for you. How does that affect your everyday life? How’s teamwork part of your life? Are you pulling for the team God? Are you doing your part as a team member? I hope so.

You can easily enough see how this kind of thing works by looking no further than your own body. Your body has many parts—limbs, organs, cells—but no matter how many parts you can name, you’re still one body. It’s exactly the same with Christ. By means of his one Spirit, we all said good-bye to our partial and piecemeal lives. We each used to independently call our own shots, but then we entered into a large and integrated life in which he has the final say in everything. (This is what we proclaimed in word and action when we were baptized.) Each of us is now a part of his resurrection body, refreshed and sustained at one fountain—his Spirit—where we all come to drink. I want you to think about how all this makes you more significant, not less. A body isn’t just a single part blown up into something huge. It’s all the different-but-similar parts arranged and functioning together. If Foot said, “I’m not elegant like Hand, embellished with rings; I guess I don’t belong to this body,” would that make it so? If Ear said, “I’m not beautiful like Eye, limpid and expressive; I don’t deserve a place on the head,” would you want to remove it from the body? If the body was all eye, how could it hear? If all ear, how could it smell? As it is, we see that God has carefully placed each part of the body right where he wanted it. (1 Cor. 12:12-18,*)

When you become a part of God’s team, you are not the one to call the shots anymore. You’re not an independent player anymore, you need to become a team player. It is a big chance. But it will bless you and every member of God’s team.

As you accept your part of God’s team, your part in the body of Christ, you will not only find your place in the world but also purpose and meaning because you’re finally doing and being who you were created to be.

As long as you think it does not matter how you live, you hurt the body of Christ. But you hurt yourself too. Only when you accept your place in God’s team, you find real happiness and contentment. Embrace Christ. Embrace the body of Christ. Embrace your part in it.

The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don’t, the parts we see and the parts we don’t. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance. You are Christ’s body—that’s who you are! You must never forget this. Only as you accept your part of that body does your “part” mean anything. (1 Cor. 12: 25-27, MSG, emphasis added,*)

If you are on God’s team, you are an important part of the body of Christ. You have a certain role to play, the others are dependent on you to do your part. That’s why it is important to do your part and pull for the team God. Every part affects the functionality of the whole. It really does matter what you do or what you leave undone.

You can’t pull for the other teams anymore. You can’t pull for yourself anymore. You are a valued team member of the team God now. And when we function as one, we can achieve more than we could ever even just imagine on our own.

 

Gracious God,
Help us to accept our place in the body of Christ.
Help us to become team players for your team.
Help us to find and enjoy our place in your team plan.
Thank you for wanting only the best for each of us.
Let us feel your love and grace.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen

Q4U: Are you on God’s team?

Be blessed, my fellow pilgrim, as you* [As you might have noticed, I enjoy reading the Bible in different translations and love comparing them. I have started linking the Bible verses to Biblegateway.com so you can easily read (and compare) them in the different versions I’ve used while preparing each post.].

Image courtesy of Jessica Echezabal, design by Mari-Anna Stålnacke. Linking up today with Dance with Jesus, Faith-filled Fridays, Five Minute Friday.