Body of Christ

Read: 1 Corinthians 6

I love this chapter in 1 Corinthians! Verse 1 says, ” Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before unrighteousness, and not before the saints? ”

If you continue reading Paul talks about how we have NO right to judge each other, we that are in the Church, we who are believers. Believers need to stop persecuting believers! We are not all the same. If you believe in the Savior Yeshua Messiah ( Jesus Christ) and if you believe in God and the Holy Spirit then you are a believer! You believe God is true and every man a liar. Yes, we need to keep Torah! I am not preaching against it at all! Torah is truth! Every Word of God proves true. But what I am saying is knit picking each other on how we perceive the Word is wrong. If you know keeping Gods law is Torah and Torah still exists today then you should be keeping it. But if you don’t know, and have never ever been taught it then you will know that the Old testament isn’t done away with! Yeshua keeps Torah. We as believers need to be focusing on the ” Big Picture”. Spread the gospel like wildfire! Go out to the nations and preach the words of our Lord! Pray for people, encourage, enlighten, teach, serve, be who God has called you to be.

Guys, internet fighting, Congregations breaking up, people arguing, people beating others with the Bible has to stop. I am just as guilty! I have gotten into some pretty pointless Facebook fights over holidays. Could I make a difference by speaking out in anger against the church? Against Christianity? Against the world? No. Being an angry person isn’t going to help anyone! Speaking negatively about others is wrong. God doesn’t like it when we fight.

If you’re a Mother or Father, or even just a babysitter, then you know that when kids fight it makes you upset as well! You just want them to stop and get along. Everything is easier when we get along. Imagine this, a room full of people, standing hand in hand, singing praises to our King in Spirit and in Truth! With no fighting, no hatred, no anger. This can happen! You have to decide what’s important to argue about. If you want fellowship, then you have to be loving to one another NO MATTER what. If you agree on Kosher, abstain from sexual immorality, keep the Feasts of the Lord, keep the Sabbath on the 7th day, and believe that Yeshua is Lord then you can absolutely fellowship! There is no excuse. You agree on what’s most important. Why can’t you fellowship? Maybe you spell the name of Yeshua different, maybe you say Jesus instead of Yeshua, God instead of Yahweh? Maybe you have a strict dress code? Maybe you’re modest but you’re not as strict? Maybe your movie selections and music selections are different? There are so many things that make us different from each other, but we all have two things in common.

1. We are ALL born into sin. “ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” Romans 3:23

2. We can all be saved through the blood of the Lamb.

Ephesians 2:8-9 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—  not by works, so that no one can boast.

 

We are all condemned. But we all have access to freedom in Yeshua. All you have to do is turn, ” Teshuvah” from your sin, STOP DOING IT and ask for forgiveness! That’s it. Our lives change when we say YES to following Him, when we turn, when we declare that Yeshua is our savior! We need to stand together as brothers and sisters in Him, One Body, one people, all sinners redeemed, all saved and all seeking the face of God. Stand firm in your faith! Focus on helping unbelievers. When they see you setting a good example, loving others and serving others, then they will see that God is good! They will see the blessing in your life and want the same. All you have to do is live for Him and when someone asks ” How? Why?” All you have to do is say, ” God.”

 By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:35

 

Fellowship

” Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” Psalm 51:10

He is renewing us. He’s cleaning out our fellowships, getting out the bad parts and keeping the good. It’s hard and it hurts… We lose friends and family, but we can’t let it get to us! We have to keep moving forward! We have to keep pushing and worshiping and praying harder than ever before! The enemy comes to devour, to destroy and divide. When a lion hunts for its prey, what does it do? Well, it comes to a herd and searches for the week, the ones that are separated from its herd. The herd might not even notice the lion at first, because it comes in secret and comes in hiding, crawling through the long grass. Then it spots its target, and then snatches the separated one and kills it. The herd needs to stay together! They can drive the lion away if they band together and fight! One big herd against one lion will win.

What I’ m trying to show here is how the enemy is searching for believers who have separated themselves from their fellowship. Ones who are falling away. I’ m not saying you have to be in a congregation, or that if you’re not then the devil is coming to take you to hell. What I really want to hit on is how we NEED fellowship. To have that brother or sister in Messiah to pray with you, counsel you, worship beside you, and be there to give an encouraging word or be used by the Father to speak into your life. Iron sharpens iron, right? Then how can we sharpen each other if we’re never communicating to one another? Fellowshiping? The enemy is causing us to get angry with each other, causing us to gossip, to hate one another! Yeshua says that if you hate someone then you’ve already committed murder in your heart. We cannot do that! We are supposed to be a light in the world! To live in Spirit and Truth and preach to the nations! How can a unbeliever follow someone who has too much hate in they’re heart? Because if they see that anger in you, that extremism, the constant disagreeing, the fighting, the bickering, the hypocrisy, they are going to want to flee from God! Because all they see is a bunch of stubborn people who can’t agree on Kosher, or Feast day ” Timing”, moon cycles, and silly things that aren’t even a big deal. I’ m sorry if this offends you but we really have to stop! We are supposed to be the body of Messiah! But we’re broken.

Lets look at some scripture verses on fellowship and congregation.

” The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. BUT if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” Matthew 6:22-23

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” Ephesians 4:1-6

” May God our Father and our Lord Yeshua bring us to you very soon. And may the Lord make your love for one another and for all people grow and overflow, just as our love for you overflows. May He, as a result, make your hearts strong, blameless, and holy as you stand before God our Father when our Lord Yeshua comes again with all His holy people. Amen.” 1 Thessalonians 3:11-13

In the presence of God and of Messiah Yeshua, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of His appearing and His kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry” 2 Timothy 4:1-5

That last verse really sticks out to me. It’s exactly whats going on today in ministries! People are turning from sound doctrine, or ” A balanced teaching” and going to conspiracy theories and weird things that DON’T line up with Gods Word. Guys, we have to stay balanced. We can’t have spiritual ADD. Its not good! Trust me, I’ve just been realizing this now! I’ve been letting other peoples ideas of things get to me and I let it cause me to let anger in me, and to not love the body of Messiah! We can’t let the enemy win! He’s coming to divide us! And cause us to leave our fellowship because one, tiny, silly, disagreement. We agree on A TON of things don’t we? I’ m not being sarcastic, we actually do agree on more things than we do disagree! That’s great! We agree on keeping Kosher, we agree to keep The Feasts Of The Lord, To keep Shabbat! And the ultimate agreement is, we believe in Yeshua! The Son of God! Who came to earth that He created and walk with us who are dirty and full of sin… Who died on the cross so we could be renewed and born again! So that He could get rid of the laws of the Pharisees ( Who were extremists) and showed us how to keep the Torah in a balanced way! He didn’t do away with the Law, He just showed us how to live it and be filled with His Spirit while we walk in Spirit and Truth! That, my friends, is perfect balance. Walking with one another in this agreement! We agree when we all stand in the presence of our Savior and we worship as one body! We worship in Spirit and Truth! Please, fellowship with each other! Please, find your balance, find friends who will walk with you! You will never EVER agree 100%, but you have to try and get along with one another! I urge you to please try!

“Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Yeshua, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, His body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” Hebrews 10:19-25