Unearth Your Body Part {in Christ}

We sit around his country style kitchen table, eyes glued to our Pastor. Leaning in; we’re hungry for whatever we can slurp up about our God. We are brand new believers. Early 20 somethings slowly shedding the shame of our past.

Pastor Walt begins our weekly meeting with this question:

What body part are you?

Literally, he is asking, what individual body part are we in the body of Christ. Am I the eye of Christ? Or the ear of Christ? How about the knee or the big toe?

Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.(1Corinthians 12:27)

What’s your function?

Pastor Walt unlocks our thinking with these examples.

He explains how he is an ‘eye’ seeing deep into God’s word, extracting truth nuggets to gift to others.

His wife, Pastor Maureen, is a ‘mouth’. Her nurturing, motherly words caress tender hearts. Her words also topple a towering enemy as easily as swatting a fly.

Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.  Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.(1 Corinthians 12:12-14)

Before the Exercise.

Brainstorm functions of different body parts.

Ears hear. Arms reach. Feet balance. Big toes lead. Hands heal. Hearts love. Kidneys filter. And the list goes on.

Are you thinking with me here?

Exercise.

Close your eyes and ask God to reveal what body part you are.

Likely, He has already begun showing you or telling you. While you were reading the above print did a particular body part invade your imagination; like a gif was texted to it? Does a particular part of your body tingle or ache?

Listening again to more of the kitchen table discussion:

“I am the knee. I see a picture of it connecting different parts of the leg.”

“Could I be the ear? I feel it tingling.”

“I see a giant bloody beating heart. Its annoying. I hate compassion. Its weak.” 20 years later many things she does are birthed from a place of compassion. And, it is powerful.

One young person throws up her hands and states, “ It figures, Im a boob!” We roar at the comedy.  Soon after, she dreams she is nursing a baby. Today this woman is an ace with new moms, and newbies to Christianity.

Another hears the line from the movie Avatar. “I see you. I see you.” She leads an organization serving girls working in the sex industry. She sees their value.

Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body.(1 Corinthians 12:15-16)

Your part

What’s He telling you?

Take a few minutes to brainstorm functions of your body part. Think about it. Google it. Ask God to confirm it with a scripture to match.