Focal Passage: 1 Corinthians 12:12-24
There’s a song we used to sing in the church I grew up in. It said “I need you, you need me. We’re all a part of God’s body.” The song was about how, as believers, we were not made to live the Christian life alone. We can find these sentiments taught in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. Here, he emphasized that it is impossible for one member of the body of Christ to say that they do not need another part.
God has designed the church to be united as one body. Just as we cannot say that we don’t need one of our body parts, God says that each member of the church is intimately connected to the other members. And just as our physical bodies function together, so should Christ’s body. Getting to a destination while our right leg is going forward and our left leg is going backward would be extremely difficult. Both legs must cooperate to move in the same direction. This is also true of the church. Each part should move in the direction of God’s kingdom purposes.
Every believer in Christ has been given a gift to use for His glory and for the advancement of the church. Again, just as our physical bodies have specific parts, so does Christ’s body (the church). If you are a believer, then God has given you a gift. This means that you should be a part of a community of believers and seek to use your gifts to serve and love them.
Because God has gifted you, you are essential to the function of the body of Christ. God would not give a gift that He did not intend for you to use. Your specific gift is there to work in concert with the gifts of other believers to see the kingdom of God go forward. As insignificant as you may think your gifts are, God says the opposite. The spiritual gifts that God gives each believer are absolutely necessary in the function of the church.