The service of the Body in the church is a matter of coordination and a matter of authority.
A Christian has several statuses before God. In receiving grace in God’s house, every saved one is a child of God. In loving the Lord Jesus, every saved one is like a virgin presented to Him. Concerning service, however, every saved one is a member of the Body of Christ. Therefore, the matter of Christian service and the matter of coordination in the Body always go together, because it is impossible for a member to exist and live by himself. Once a member is alone and by himself, he immediately loses his existence and function. Christian service is a corporate service, not an individual service. Hence, we must be freed from our independence.
In service, we not only need to be freed from sins and the self; we also need to be freed even more from our independence. Our problem is that we have our own views and opinions and therefore have no way to coordinate with others. On the surface, our service may appear to be corporate and not individual, but in reality there may be very little that is truly corporate in our service. Apparently our service may be corporate, but in actuality it may be the service of a few individuals. The reason for this is the lack of the reality of coordination.
Service is especially manifested in the Body of Christ. Once service to God in the church is mentioned in the Bible, it is immediately linked to the members of the Body. Every saved one is a member. While you are serving God together with the brothers and sisters, do you feel that there is a relationship between you and the other members? When you coordinate with a brother in the church, do you feel like you are the hand and he is the arm? Do you feel that it is impossible for you and him to be freed from one another, that there is no way for you to become detached, independent, or separated? We must admit that we seldom have this kind of feeling.
In our service to God, we must be brought by God to the point where we have the consciousness of the Body and do not serve individually but in coordination with the brothers and sisters. We must be brought to a point where the brothers’ move is our move, and our move is the brothers’ move. Regardless of the circumstance we are in, our feeling should always be that what the brothers are doing is no different from what we are doing. The two should be the same.
Not only so, whenever there is a problem in our coordination with the Body, we should sense it immediately. When our coordination with all the members is normal, we may not have much feeling that we are in coordination. This is similar to the coordination in our body. In a normal situation the members of our body do not have much feeling about each other’s existence. However, when a certain member has a problem, then there is a consciousness. Therefore, if we sense the existence of a certain member, then that member must have a problem. When we are particularly conscious of our eyes, something must be wrong with our eyes.
For instance, when we begin to learn how to serve, we may constantly feel that we are unclean. We may pray, “O Lord, cleanse me. Forgive me of all my offenses.” Later, going a step further, we may feel that we are peculiar, that we do not have any strength, and that we have not accomplished anything in our service. A person who serves the Lord should have feelings of this kind. It is abnormal to not have feelings. If we can quarrel with our spouse at home yet serve God without any feeling, this indicates that there is a big problem in our spiritual condition.
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