Romans 12:5-8 - The Body of Jesus Christ, The Church

Today, Sunday March 21 Romans 12:5-8 – The Gifted Body of Jesus Christ One of the most important aspects of your spiritual journey and Christian experience is knowing, understanding and exercising your spiritual gifts in the context of the Body of Jesus Christ, His Church! Today so many people are turned off to the church because of a bad experience with religion or some church. They dislike and want nothing to do with “church” because they have been told that most of the problems in the world have been cause by religion. And in some ways this is very true. Personally, I am against so called religion. Religious beliefs by themselves usually either makes a person proud or they bring condemnation. But I am very much for a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. It is a relationship with Jesus that will wash away and cleanse you of all your sins and give you eternal life, not the religious things you do. Jesus loved the Church so much that He gave Himself for it! (Ephesians 5:25) We should love the Church too. The Book of Acts is primary about the birth of the local Church and the growth of that church throughout the known world. Most of the New Testament was written to local churches.  With the exceptions of the books of Timothy and Titus, all the epistles of the New Testament, including The Revelation, was written to the local churches. In the New Testament, we find the local church is a locally gathered body of baptized believers under the discipline and guidance of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God, that is organized for worship, fellowship, discipleship, education, ministry, evangelism and to exercise the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s supper. As far as I am concerned, the Church is the greatest thing going on planet earth today! If you are not a part of a local church that is doing the above things, look for one and exercise your spiritual gifts there! God bless!