In Christ Week 3

Father,
Thank you that we get to slow down today and look at what it means to be In Christ. As we review the Pauline passages from the last week, I ask that you would inhabit us and help us to take this truth deep into our souls. Thank you, Jesus, that we get to be in you, that we get to grow into union with you.
Amen

On Monday, we looked at 1 Thessalonians 5:16-8, where we learned that in Christ, joy can be our continual feast. How can we do this? It is God’s plan for us to be thankful in all situations, in Christ Jesus. That takes a pretty major attitude shift, doesn’t it? We’ve been so programmed to sit around and whine and focus on the negative stuff happening around us that the thought of being thankful is alien to us, but that is what God desires from us who are in Christ.
On Wednesday, we saw Paul expressing how he is thankful whenever he thinks about Philemon and how Philemon loves the Body of Christ. I think this is Paul showing how to do what we talked about on Monday, that is, even when he is having a hard time, he finds reasons to be thankful to God, and lives in that reality, rather than focusing on the adverse conditions he faces in his own life and ministry. If we can master this, and be thankful for the smallest things on a regular basis, our lives will start to at least seem, if not actually become better. I can attest to this. Years ago, I was a very angry person because I hadn’t shifted my thinking and perceptions over to this reality, then I started to grab the Truth of who I am in Christ, and focus more on the good things that I do have and that I do receive in Him, and the anger and frustration started to melt away. Simple shifts that are so key, but not always easy to make, but with His help, we can make them.
On Friday, we took time to remind ourselves of the fact that we are one in the body of Christ. This line of thinking is often lost or missed in the ultra-individualistic West, as it strikes us as too collectivist or socialistic, and as though we would not have enough say in our own individual lives if we admitted to ourselves that we are interdependent on one another, and that in Christ, we need to function as a single human body. When was the last time you functioned at full capacity when you had a raging headache or a sore back? Would it work for your whole body to somehow be an eyeball or a brain? No, of course not, we each need every part of our bodies to be whole and to work in concert with one another in order to function as intended by God. This interdependence of being is the key to why in Jerusalem in the time of Acts, the ekklesia was able to hold all things in common (except for Ananias and Saphira, apparently, who missed the memo). When one body part hurts, we all hurt. When one is successful, we all can rejoice with them. This kind of interconnectivity and interdependence needs to be revived among Jesus followers.
So, to wrap this last week up with a nice little bow, I sense the Lord encouraging us to re-focus on what matters and what is actually real. The mercy of God is real, His grace, in Christ, is real. These things ought to enable us to live in a continual joy feast due to a mindset of gratitude and thankfulness to God, rather than focusing on temporal hardships and perceived deprivations that we face, and allowing those things to keep us isolated, rather than participating fully in the mystery of the Body of Christ. When we all (individually and as a community) shift into that place of thankfulness and realizing that we are truly one in Christ, then we will stop sniping at one another and seek to help one another, to truly love one another in Christ. How, if we are truly in Christ, and that reality has formed us, can we do anything but love other members of the body?