The Body of Christ: I Corinthians 12

Originally written as a letter to my friends, here are my notes on I Corinthians 12:

Paul starts out by saying that only those in Christ have the Holy Spirit, and everyone in Christ has the gifts of the Holy Spirit. What a sweet promise that is! I can be assured that I am never alone, that I always have the Spirit on my side, that the greatest Power in the universe is with me, helping me, strengthening me, guiding me. What a sweet power the Holy Spirit is, and I can take comfort knowing that his gifts are with me as well as with all of you. Now here is where you guys came into my thoughts. Next Paul says that though we may all be different people with different gifts to do different things, we all are serving the same God, working for the same purpose, and recieved our gifts from the same Spirit.

Then the gifts of the Holy Spirit are listed (9 in all). God thought of so many ways to bless us! The cool thing is, we all have one of these. I used to think that since I was curing lepors or speaking in tongues that I wasn't spiritually gifted. Maybe you've thought that too. But in this chapter it says were all gifted. In Hungary, after having each one explained to me, I found out that I did have one all along! How great God is! You all have one too, but maybe you don't know it. If so, pray and ask God to show it to you.

Then it gets really awesome. Many of us have read the passage about the church being compared to different parts of the body with each one doing its function, but in context it's even more beautiful! All of us are blessed with different spiritual gifts, all of us were specially designed to do something that maybe the rest of us could not do. People that some of us might be able to reach might not be reachable by others of us because of our design. However, when put together, we have an awesome functioning body of Christ able to do whatever Christ desires and all working in conjunction for our greater purpose- to glorify God and further the kingdom of our King! I thought it was a beautiful chapter (as is the next one, the more famous I Corinthians 13- who knew that such a great chapter was before it?) Anyway, I love each and every one of you and thank God for putting all of you guys in my life. He is so wise to put all of us together, and together we can reach the lost, dying world. I hope this blesses you as much as it is blessing me.