The Lord said, “Admonish them to take their place in My body.”

To believers of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Head of His church, and to those who question if God has thoughts towards you. To those who would wonder if you even matter at all, and to the leaders and ministers in the church. The Lord has said to admonish you to take your place in His body. That you might be an active participant with Him at a church in regularly coming together while having your giftings in mind.

For the Lord says to you,

“I have carefully designed each member and placed you in the body to function as I desire. A diversity is required, for if the body consisted of one single part, there wouldn’t be a body at all!” (1 Corinthians 12:18,19 TPT) 

Dearly Beloved, you have giftings within you that are not just meant to be given only to the world you live in, but must also be ministered to the family of God that Paul describes to us as the body of Christ. How can the Creator of the universe create you as a mistake when He thought of you ahead of time and birthed you into existence? How could God, who is the Author of your story, appoint you to anything other than a beautiful existence in giving us life and life more abundantly through the cross and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? Though in this life we may have troubles, He says we can take heart and be of good cheer for our Prince of Peace is the answer that we need through it all. God has fashioned you with holy purpose in mind, and regardless of past experiences or how you entered into the world, God looks at you and sees no mistake.

“For you are His workmanship [His own master work, a work of art], created in Christ Jesus [reborn from above–spiritually transformed, renewed, ready to be used] for good works, which God prepared [for us] beforehand [taking paths which He set], so that we would walk in them [living the good life which He prearranged and made ready for us].” (Ephesians 2:10 AMP) God has appointed you to live a good life as you give the gift of your life back to Him as worship in serving one another in the family of God.

You may say you have tried church before and it hurt you. Possibly those who were there that hurt you were still on their journey of being not conformed to this world, but were still being transformed by the renewing of their minds and were lacking in perfection. Can we say that we have ever met a perfect man except for the Son of Man who came down from heaven? He took upon Himself our sinful nature. Bearing our penalty on the cross and in the prison of hell. Only to be released in resurrection that we might be continually washed throughout our lifetime as we stumble through walking out our Christianity before Him in much fear and trembling. Yet in knowing that we will be in continual need of repentance before Him because of our shortcomings, He still expects that we come together to worship and glorify His name as one. So He then gives us no excuse to pull away because of the failures of man, but tells us that He sets us in His body as it pleases Him in spite of all of our failures. As we too must receive you and your failures and shortcomings. Yet we understand that even in a state where you lack perfection, when your gifts are withheld from the rest of us we suffer loss and hardship in the absence of you. For there is no other duplicate, copy or replica. You are one of a kind, and when He sets you where it pleases Him, you are there to give of your giftings. It’s within this connection to His church body that you are able to receive of God’s life giving blessings. The blessings that can only be received through mutual giving and receiving from one another.

This is the reason why many who do not rightly discern their importance in His body get sick and die early because they are not connecting to God’s life-giving flow as He has ordained that we should. The Lord taught us this truth when He told us to remember His broken body and the shedding of His blood in taking the elements of communion. He says to us through the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:23b,32 (CEB):

On the night on which he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread. After giving thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this to remember me.” He did the same thing with the cup, after they had eaten, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Every time you drink it, do this to remember me.” Every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you broadcast the death of the Lord until he comes. This is why those who eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord inappropriately will be guilty of the Lord’s body and blood. Each individual should test himself or herself, and eat from the bread and drink from the cup in that way. Those who eat and drink without correctly understanding the body are eating and drinking their own judgment. Because of this, many of you are weak and sick, and quite a few have died. But if we have judged ourselves, we wouldn’t be judged. However, we are disciplined by the Lord when we are judged so that we won’t be judged and condemned along with the whole world.

Are you presently sick, weak or dying? Have you properly judged the body of the Lord Jesus Christ and His commission that you bring your giftings and become a participant in His kingdom work on the earth? Accept that God saved you and provided for your healing by the stripes that He bore upon His body as part of your salvation. Then enter back into fellowship with the church of His choosing for you. In doing so, you will be healed and made whole in rightly discerning the Lord’s body.

Ministers and church leaders, are you properly discerning the Lord’s body and those whom you are called with a holy calling to serve? You are called to properly discern His church body and know the spiritual children and leaders within your care. Accept wholeheartedly the giftings the Lord God has so wonderfully placed within them in providing them opportunities to grow and develop. I pray that your hearts as spiritual fathers and mothers would turn to your children and that you would avoid placing them in boxes to serve in manners that advance your ministries vision. If the advancement of the vision is the aim, it serves only to frustrate the gift of God and grace that is within your spiritual children unless the vision includes their equipping. 

For this reason it is no wonder that many churches lack adequate help and volunteers. Too often churches are looking to fill in blanks rather than looking to bring out Jesus within the precious lives they are joined together with in the service of the Lord. So take soberly your commission from the Lord to equip His saints for their work unto Him and the world will no longer be able to resist us as they so easily do. For then the face of Jesus will be seen among us all and no man will be able to resist the Lord Jesus Christ when they behold Him for who He truly is rather than who we have falsely displayed Him to be. If you as a leader are weak, sick or dying, it’s time to properly discern the Lord’s body and you too will be healed by the power of God.

Brother’s and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ, we are called to family, fellowship and oneness as the body of Christ. We are called as a family, not just ones who must observe religious duties. For at the Lord’s supper, in church and in communion, there is fellowship with the Lord and with one another. There is both present the Bread of Life and the Wine we know as God the Holy Spirit. There is reverence to the call to holiness in that we were all washed in the blood of Jesus to be purchased to a new life that is meant to be lived out for His glory and His glory alone. A life of healing, wholeness and abundance in the redemptive provision of Jesus Christ.

Let us then commit to coming together as a church body of believers in the Lord Jesus Christ and forsake isolation and rejection of one another and each one's giftings. For His exaltation is our one unified purpose across the face of the earth, and as we come together let us recognize the importance in every person present. Let us revere the fact that every person is a gift, and they have life to bring to us. Let’s purpose that we come together to see Jesus pour out of us all that He has ever dreamed that we would be in Him. 

Know that you matter and we have need of you, and you Dear One have need of us. Hold tightly to these words that you might understand your importance, and be in agreement and conformity to His word to live the good life He has prepared ahead of time for you to live.

1 Corinthians 12:12,20 (TPT)

Just as the human body is one, though it has many parts that together form one body, so too is Christ. For by one Spirit we all were immersed and mingled into one single body. And no matter our status–whether we are Jews or non–Jews, oppressed or free–we all are privileged to drink deeply of the same Holy Spirit. In fact, the human body is not one single part but rather many parts mingled into one. So if the foot were to say, “Since I’m not a hand, I’m not a part of the body,” it’s forgetting that it is still a vital part of the body. And if the ear were to say, “Since I’m not an eye, I’m not really a part of the body,” it’s forgetting that it is still an important part of the body. Think of it this way. If the whole body were just an eyeball, how could it hear sounds? And if the whole body were just an ear, how could it smell different fragrances? But God has carefully designed each member and placed it in the body to function as he desires. A diversity is required, for if the body consisted of one single part, there wouldn’t be a body at all! So now we see that there are many differing parts and functions, but one body.