Te New
Testament teaches that we are joined to people, making us a living
organism, not a static organization. Our
joints with each other are both relational and functional.
We are friends, and as friends we are productive in working in
God’s Kingdom.
All this
presupposes an important truth. First
and foremost we are joined to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Like the joints we have with each other, our joining with Jesus is
both relational and functional. You
can see this in John 15:16 where Jesus says, “you did not choose me, but
I chose you, and appointed you to go and bear fruit…”
In this
context Jesus says that He has chosen us to be His friends.
How thankful we should be for that.
The Lord of all there is has chosen you and I to be His friends.
This parallels what I’ve said about our joints to one another
being relational. Our joining
with Jesus and to each other is based on mutual friendships.
Things
don’t stop here. Jesus then
tells the Eleven that He has appointed them to bear fruit. This is the
functional aspect of our joining with Jesus.
There are things that He has appointed us to do, or to function in.
We need to know what these things are and do them.
This is what bearing fruit is all about.
So what
I‘ve been saying concerning those we are joined to in the Body of Christ
should also be evident in our joining with Jesus.
Our relationship with Jesus is both relational and functional, as
it should be with our joining to each others in the Body of Christ.
Relational means we are friends with Jesus.
He supports us. Functional means we work for and with Him in
bearing fruit. He is both our
friend and our boss. Without
an effective joining with Jesus, our joining to each other will be
deficient. To the degree in
which we are properly joined to Jesus in both a relational and functional
sense, will be the degree in which we can be effectively joined to each
other. The health of the Body of Christ depends desperately on our
individual relationship with Jesus, and then how that is expressed to
others to whom we are joined.
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