The Many Membered Unified Body of Christ

5 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.

Drop down to verse 9

1 Peter 2:9 NASB95

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;

God has arranged his body

1 Corinthians 12:18 (AMP)

But as it is, God has placed and arranged the limbs and organs in the body, each [particular one] of them, just as He wished and saw fit and with the best adaptation.

1 Corinthians 12:18–19 TPT

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!

The father has set up his body and every member has an important role to play.

We will never be able to come into our full effectiveness until we understand our identity and function.

God has set up each of the five fold gifting to equip his church. They are the ones who help identify what you are and how you play a role in the body of Christ.

Every member has a specific adaptation that it has been equipped with in order to effectively manifest Christ in the earth. We don’t need cheap knock offs we need great originals. This all starts when we understand who we are and what we do.

It’s a dangerous thing for you to try and call yourself something or function as something you are not. This will bring great damage to the entire body. Imagine for a second if your ear wanted to be your foot for a day. How painful that would be!

No member is more important that the other. They are all vital pieces. We have to stop competing with ourselves and allow God to use us in the way that he has designed us to function. We will find out that no one can out do us if we are truly walking in our measure doing what the father has called us to do.

Ephesians 1:22–23 AMP

And He has put all things under His feet and has appointed Him the universal and supreme Head of the church [a headship exercised throughout the church], Which is His body, the fullness of Him Who fills all in all [for in that body lives the full measure of Him Who makes everything complete, and Who fills everything everywhere with Himself].

We must go from being only “member minded” to being “body minded” if we are ever going to work as a collective body in the earth.

The fabric of love is what binds us together as a body and we must be willing to serve one another in the bond of love.

During the Lord Jesus Christ earthly ministry he said that he had no place to rest his head, because his body wasn’t yet formed in the earth, but now we the church is his body and we must realize that as we align ourselves with him he places us in a position of authority where we now are able to fulfill our dominion mandate. We won’t come to the full potential of that promise trying to do things individually but we must work collectively.

The True Temple

Hebrews 8:5 NASB95

who serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, just as Moses was warned by God when he was about to erect the tabernacle; for, “See,” He says, “that you make all things according to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain.”

God is a God of patterns, this is important for us to understand.

The temple was the meeting place where Divinity meet with humanity.

The tabernacle of moses was build from a heavenly blueprint. It was not the real temple but was a replica.

The temple settled not just affairs of worship to Yaweh, but even matters that dealt with society such as marriage, affairs of property and land, how to treat foreigners, even how to settle matters of law, etc.

God had established priest & elders to represent him and his judgments on the earth.

The priesthood was an order of Father to Sons, and only Aaron and his sons were able to function as priest in the temple.

All of these things were only the type and shadow of what was to come.

1 Peter 2:5 (AMP)

1 Peter 2:5

[Come] and, like living stones, be yourselves built [into] a spiritual house, for a holy (dedicated, consecrated) priesthood, to offer up [those] spiritual sacrifices [that are] acceptable and pleasing to God through Jesus Christ.

The body of christ is the true temple of God that is positioned in the earth to establish rule for the Kingdom of God.

This temple is not of the levitical order but we have been engrafted into Christ which is a different priest and of a different order. We are under the order of Melchisedek which is a king priest order.

Hebrews 7:11–12 NASB95

Now if perfection was through the Levitical priesthood (for on the basis of it the people received the Law), what further need was there for another priest to arise according to the order of Melchizedek, and not be designated according to the order of Aaron? For when the priesthood is changed, of necessity there takes place a change of law also.

We must understand our position in Christ and how together we are built into a temple to function on the earth as Christ being the head and we being his members in the earth where he fills all with himself.

Only when we come into our proper alignment will we walk in the authority that Christ demonstrated here on earth. We the church are suppose to be speaking to the issues that are in the world today not out of your opinions and ideas, but as the representation of God’s government here in the earth. We are suppose to be legislating on behalf of the heavenly courts and carrying out kingdom agenda. This can only come when we are truly united and working together as one body.

The Government of God on Earth

Ephesians 4:11–13 KJV 1900

And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:

1 Corinthians 12:28 NASB95

And God has appointed in the church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, various kinds of tongues.

We must as a church come under the proper order of God’s Government for his kingdom Rule on the earth.

We must humble ourselves under the Government that God has set in his church and allow him to place us as he sees fit.

As we develop relationships one with another it is love, and our obedience to the Father that brings the beautiful spirit of unity to his body.

The result of us building according to the pattern will be found in...

2 Chronicles 5:11–14 NASB95

When the priests came forth from the holy place (for all the priests who were present had sanctified themselves, without regard to divisions), and all the Levitical singers, Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun, and their sons and kinsmen, clothed in fine linen, with cymbals, harps and lyres, standing east of the altar, and with them one hundred and twenty priests blowing trumpets in unison when the trumpeters and the singers were to make themselves heard with one voice to praise and to glorify the Lord, and when they lifted up their voice accompanied by trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music, and when they praised the Lord saying, “He indeed is good for His lovingkindness is everlasting,” then the house, the house of the Lord, was filled with a cloud, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of God.

If this was the case under the levitical order how much more true under the right priesthood.

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