The Family of God

Romans 12:5 

So we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.

The other day I was chatting with a friend who reminded me that "we will always be friends, because we are family."  This got me to thinking about the Body of Christ and what that term really means. All trough scripture we are reminded that we are the family of God, His complete body, apart from that we are lost, one cannot function without the other. The function that God is referring to of course is the Great Commission, to be His Light unto the world... the reason we were created. As Mother Theresa's Prayer so eloquently spells out:

Christ Has No Body

Christ has no body but yours,

No hands, no feet on earth but yours,

Yours are the eyes with which he looks

Compassion on this world,

Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,

Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.

Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,

Yours are the eyes, you are his body.

Christ has no body now but yours,

No hands, no feet on earth but yours,

Yours are the eyes with which he looks

compassion on this world.

Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

So much of our lives are consumed with satisfying our own needs, forging our own paths,claiming our own place in the world...we get lost, misguided...Satan is the master of deception, he pulls us from our destiny, we are human and we bend,we give in, we conform. Through prayer and the unity of body and by God's Grace alone we can be lifted up above and out of ourselves...we can indeed tell both friends and strangers alike that "We are Family" and Nothing can separate us from that. Have you been as bold as my friend and told those you love..(who by the way should be everyone)  that you will always be there for them, that you have no other choice... you were created as His Body, as His Family for works of Love. That is a challenge.....one when met produces a heart like my friends who without a second thought includes others as "Family" who gives with the heart of Jesus and recognizes that apart from that we are lost. There are people all around you ..'parts of the family' who need to hear that. You  have that power to lift them out of themselves and into His Mighty Hand... and you do it with a compassionate, giving heart, knowing that strengehening other members ,strenghens The Body / The Family so that His Kingdom will come.

THANK GOD FOR THE FAMILY HE SENDS US.....

 Ephesians2:19-22

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

Ephesians 3:14-19 

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,