“Now you are Christ’s body, and individually members of it.” (I Corinthians 12:27). For this reason, we need to accept one another and be willing to be built up together with one another. We must not allow minor disagreements to divide and separate us from one another.

Some of the most encouraging, most edifying fellowship I have enjoyed has been with brothers that had a totally different understanding, a totally different perspective on important issues of the faith. We need to be tolerant. We need to listen. We need to be willing to calmly discuss issues without becoming emotionally attached to what we have been taught and have embraced for years.

We need to be able to gather together with brothers of widely different backgrounds and discuss our beliefs and go to the Scriptures and examine rationally the basis for each perspective. We need to be able to do this, not to prove that we are right, but together, to reach a deeper, more scriptural understanding of God and of His ways. We each need to be humble enough to be taught by the Spirit and to be willing to give up any teaching of man that we may have adopted when we find it to be contrary to Scripture.

We need to trust God that His Spirit within us is able, by the love of God that has been poured abroad in our hearts, to empower us to love brothers with whom we do not agree on every issue. We need to be willing to fellowship together, disagreeing at times on various issues, and yet embracing each other as brothers in Christ, as members of the one body, being built up together as a spiritual habitation of God in the Spirit.

I Peter 2:1-5 says, “Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord. And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

 We are living stones being built up together into a spiritual house for a holy priesthood. If we are going to be built up together, we need to esteem the other as better than ourselves, and not to think more highly of ourselves than we ought.

Paul encourages us in Philippians 2:1-8, “Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.

“Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

In the New Testament, we never see more than one church in any city. We see the church in Jerusalem, the church in Ephesus, and the church in Colossae. We see references to multiple churches in regions or countries: the churches in Galatia, the churches in Judea, and the churches in Asia. Some of these churches met in homes. But even in Jerusalem, where more than 8,000 believers were reported as being saved in Acts chapters 2 and 4, there is no record of more than one church in that city.

Instead, the believers met together daily, in the temple and from house to house, breaking bread together. The believers met with those that happened to be living near them. There is no record in Scripture of believers seeking out a church where they were more comfortable, or where the people all agreed on every issue.

No, God placed them in the church, in the body, as it pleased Him. The believers were focused on Christ and His grace that had been poured out on them. God has not changed. He still places believers in the body as it pleases Him.

I John 4:20-21 says, “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.  And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.”

In I Corinthians 12:4-10, Paul identifies several spiritual gifts. “Now there are different gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different ministries, but the same Lord. And there are different activities, but the same God activates each gift in each person.  A demonstration of the Spirit is given to each person to produce what is beneficial” (HCSB).

He continues in I Corinthians 12:11-27, “All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines. Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.

“Now if the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

“The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you!’ And the head cannot say to the feet, ‘I don’t need you!’ On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it” (NIV).

We need to understand that each member of the body has been given certain gifts by God and placed in the body as it has pleased Him. There are many parts, yet one body. “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you!’ Or again, the head can’t say to the feet, ‘I don’t need you!’”

Unfortunately, the body of Christ has been divided into many parts. Some of these parts insist that only those that are exactly like them can be a part of their church. What we end up with is the church of the eyes on one street, the church of the ears on another street, the church of the hands on another street, and the church of the heads on yet another street.

We have failed to realize that God has placed each member in the body, living in close proximity to each other, for the effectual building up of the body of Christ. We have chosen where we worship, what church we join, based on our preferences and our comfort level, rather than on where God has placed us. We have put a priority on our comfort and our acceptance by man, receiving honor from one another, instead of receiving honor from God. We meet with the church of our choice and have gladly joined the division of greatest comfort.

God sovereignly places believers in neighborhoods, in towns, where there are other believers. His expectation is that these believers would bow to His sovereign arrangement and fellowship with the believers that He has placed near them. If we are not able to fellowship with the believers that God has placed nearest to us, perhaps it reveals something about whether we are really loving the brothers. Perhaps we are only willing to love the brothers that make us comfortable.

Jesus said in Matthew 16:24, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” Jesus tells us in Mark 10:29-30, “Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms, for My sake and for the gospel’s sake, but that he will receive a hundred times as much now in the present age, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms, along with persecutions; and in the age to come, eternal life.”

If we are willing to trust the Lord and follow Him, giving up our comfort, our preferences, He promises to place us in His family as it pleases Him. We need to decide. What do we care more about? Do we care more about our comfort and our preferences, or do we care more about being built up together in the body of Christ, right where God has placed us?

Writings By Jon von Ernst

The Lord of All Things Series - A Trilogy of Truth 
Books in this series:
Book 1 - The Gospel of the Kingdom
Book 2- The Victorious Christian
Book 3 - Walking in the Light  -  Following in His Steps

*- Audio of these books are available free of charge at thepureword.net.