{"id":3467,"date":"2020-11-11T15:12:36","date_gmt":"2020-11-11T21:12:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theclarion.org\/?p=3467"},"modified":"2020-11-11T15:12:36","modified_gmt":"2020-11-11T21:12:36","slug":"thoughts-from-the-bible-11-11-20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/?p=3467","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts from The Bible: – 11\/11\/20"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our Life In Christ<\/strong>
\nby Terry Broome<\/em><\/p>\n

The church is a marvelous and Divine organism by virtue of her Divine origin (Matt. 16:18). According to Eph. 2:1-5, she\u2019s made up of all those who are alive in Christ. Thus, the church is a living organism. As such she has the capability to grow and to be renewed. God has equipped this living organism with all the capability to be renewed in Spirit and to be refreshed with the Hope of Glory (Col. 1:27), and with the \u201cone hope of your calling\u201d (Eph. 4:4).
\nThis church is called His body in Eph. 1:22,23, and as such it bears similar capabilities to our physical bodies in that we can grow and be renewed through compliance with His laws and His blessing.<\/p>\n

Not only has God provided a strong skeleton to support that body (Acts 2:42\u2013 the teachings or doctrines that frame our fellowship) but he has also equipped it with spiritual relationships and spiritual exercises that boost and build up the whole body in compliance with \u201cthe Law of the Spirit of Life In Christ Jesus.\u201d (Rom. 8:2). This spiritual life of the church is epitomized in the First Century church in the words of Acts 2:44, \u201cAnd all that believed were together and had all things common.\u201d Thus, they grew and were strengthened.<\/p>\n

We must not lose sight of this fact: The body only thrives when its members thrive, thus the Body of Christ, the Church, is illustrated in Eph. 4:11-16 as a body of members that are fitly joined together with each one supplying his part to the building up of the whole body. Personal growth of individual Christians supports the growth of this spiritual body. As individual Christians add the attributes, we fondly call the Christian graces of 2 Pet. 1:5-7 and the fruits of the spirit of Gal. 5:22-24, the whole body is increased (Eph. 4:16).<\/p>\n

Churches must spend time evaluating the many ingredients that contribute to the building up of a strong body of believers in a local congregation. Some of the many facets of that development are worship (both public and private), education, evangelism, benevolence, sharing and caring, \u201cone another involvements,\u201d and many other forms of fellowship. All of these contribute directly to the building up of the body of Christ. The church is a fellowship of believers united in Christ Jesus. According to 1 Cor 3:9, we are laborers together with God: \u201cFor we are labourers together with God: ye are God\u2019s husbandry, ye are God\u2019s building.\u201d As such, we are to supply our part to the edification of the whole body. See you in worship this Lord\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n

God never designed Christianity to be a \u201cgo it alone\u201d experience. Sometimes our situations force us to be alone for a period of time, as has been much the case during the COVID -19 Pandemic, but ultimately, we need to get back to other members of the body, the church. There we are able to \u201cexhort one another daily, while it is called today; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin\u201d (Hebrews 3:13). May God heal our land and purge it from moral decadence as well as from the horrible COVID Virus Pandemic that has taken so many lives, and has caused so many Christians to have to worship from home online. This separation period has been necessary for many who have health issues that put them at high risk.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t it be wonderful when we get past that pandemic and can rejoin our Christian family in worship services and the work of the church! I hope you will join me in prayer for this time to come soon.<\/p>\n

The author can be reached for comments at 256-574-2489.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our Life In Christ by Terry Broome The church is a marvelous and Divine organism by virtue of her Divine origin (Matt. 16:18). According to Eph. 2:1-5, she\u2019s made up of all those who are alive in Christ. Thus, the church is a living organism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tho"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3467"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3468,"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3467\/revisions\/3468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}