The Body of Christ - II

What does the body of Christ need? It is a "body" and bodies need certain things to survive, to grow and to flourish.

Bodies are living,breathing things. If something breathes, it needs "air." It is interesting to note that the word in the original language for "spirit" is "breath," including ths Spirit of God. (The breath of God.)

The first thing the body of Christ needs is the breath of God. It is the Spirit of God, who is the immanence of God. God is everywhere, but sometimes we do not experience his presence. Immanence is his presence that we do experience. It is the "right here-ness" of God. We focus our hearts on God, and he becomes immanent. He feeds our hearts. He is the channel of God's grace and love. He is our personal guide and teacher.

He is our connection to God. He is like a powerful generator, producing life and grace in our hearts. He is also like the wires, because he is the connection between us and the Source.

Scripture also says that he is like a down payment. When someone buys a house or a car, there is often a down payment. Money given to the seller by the buyer which says "I am really serious about this. I have to go get the rest of the money, but I am coming back." The Spirit is God's down payment to us saying that he is really serious about making us his family and returning to take us home with him.

And he is active. And we need him to be active in our lives. And it is possible to hinder the activity of the Spirit. The least we could do is stop focusing our hearts on God, and the Spirit will cease his flow -- and his activity -- in our lives.

We want the Spirit to be active. The more activity there is, then there are more hearts focused on God, God is more focused on his children, and there is a greater flow of grace into the world. There is a greater impact by God and his kingdom is restored more. His children live as they were designed more, with more love and more fruitful results.

A while ago, I wrote about a man ( Here ) who equated more Spirit with more of the miraculous. Now, I am not against the miraculous. In fact, more of the miraculous would be a good thing. But, my point before was the miraculous without love is not the miraculous. It is just card tricks with glitter. It has no substance and no worth.

The miraculous can be a sign of the Spirit's activity. But so can cooking a meal for a neighbor in need. And we can be more sure of the meal than we can of the miracle.