The Worldwide Christian Church is sometimes called the body of Christ. In fact, that is what Scripture terms it (1 Cor. 12.27; Eph. 4.12), and who are we to dispute what God says? Looking at the Church as a living body, we can see the terminology is so appropriate.
Let’s do a little fantasizing. Imagine, if you will, a human whose body – each part, each of the many muscles and each cell and operation – was so perfectly fit and synchronized with the head (mind) that there would be not the least malfunction or less than perfect working of the body as a whole. There would be no underperformance by any of the least esteemed and minuscule parts. A person like that could run a hundred yards in less than five seconds. He could also excel at endurance races and run a mile in fifty seconds or less. With proper training, this same finely tuned athlete could scale Mt. Everest in record time, lift prodigious weights and win the Tour d’France every time he entered. And athletic prowess would not be his only area of excellence. He would be a leading scholar in many fields of study. In short, such a person would be a superman or superwoman in all areas of achievement.
Now let’s extrapolate a bit. What would happen if the individual members of the body of Christ were all perfectly healthy in a spiritual sense and were all synchronized with each other and with the Head of the body, Christ? What a glorious organism the Church would be and what prodigious feats it would accomplish in the world! We would continually be attaining the full will of God wherever it would take us as a Church and as individuals.
Of course, the continuous perfect accomplishment of the will of God by each individual in the Church at any one time or in any one place will never happen in this lifetime. We are saved and led by the Spirit of God, but there is yet too much lacking in our knowledge of His will and in our giving ourselves over completely to doing His will, whatever it may cost us. We are pressing towards that goal, but we have quite a way to go before we attain it.
What we have to do now as individuals is to bend every effort, daily and by the moment, to see that we are doing all that God wants us to do. Sure, we’ll make mistakes. Sometimes we’ll not discern that we are not doing God’s full will, not because we actually do not know His will, but because we will subconsciously think it is demanding too much of us. It’s possible to fail in that way without realizing it. But, as we walk with God and grow in grace and knowledge, He will reveal our shortcomings to us and then expect us to correct them.
Some day we will all be perfected, and until that day we will keep on pushing and striving to be and to do all that we can by the grace of God. When God sees that we are making the effort to fulfill all of His will, He will bear with us, patiently waiting for us to grow. It’s not as bad to try and fall short as it is to give up trying. That would be extremely displeasing to God. We simply have to “hang tough” in our prayer life.
Hanging Tough in Prayer
There are some things that God wants us to have – things that we want as individuals or for the Church – yet He doesn’t give them to us without lengthy praying. Why is this so? At times God wants us to go through a season of petitioning Him long and diligently just because that is His will at that time. We have a strong example of continually praying for what God wills to give us in Elijah (1 Kings 18:41-46). He prayed seven times for the rain that he knew was coming. But he also knew that God wanted him to present the petition that God wanted all along to grant him. What Elijah experienced is an example to us today: If your petition is scripturally sound and if you believe, God will hear you.
Human logic tells us that if we pray in faith one time only, God will hear and answer. That happens often. But the reverse also happens often. Let’s look again at the example of Elijah: Elijah had prophesied, that is, he had spoken for God Himself, and foretold of the rains coming after three years of drought. It seems that he should not have had to pray for the rain even once since God had spoken through him and promised it. But not only did Elijah have to pray once, he prayed seven times – and I am sure he prayed in faith – before there arose from the sea a little cloud the size of a man’s hand. That was all that Elijah needed: he knew his God was about to send a gully washer. And it was so. The rain came down in torrents.
We should apply Elijah’s example to ourselves as individuals and as the body of Christ. As the body of Christ (the Church), we are all recipients of God’s grace and salvation, but we are far from being in perfect harmony. We are all saved, yet lacking the unity that God wants, and that we all should yearn for. We should all long for the “perfect body” with which we dealt in the first part of this discourse.
Of course a perfect body must have perfect members, all working together for the good of the body (Kingdom of God). The logical way to address this issue is for each member of the Church to pray concertedly for the good of himself and his brothers and sisters (members of the body) and for the overall welfare of the Church. As we members grow and prosper spiritually the body of Christ will be blessed accordingly.
We are not in a position to tell God how often and how long we should pray for a particular request. If He has made us know that praying for it once is sufficient, well and good. We can present our petition that one time and sit back and wait for the answer. But if we are close to God, there are times when we sense that once or twice or three times is not enough: God wants us to come to Him again and again with the same petition.
This calls, without doubt, for being sensitive to the will of God and praying in faith. We should ask ourselves two questions: 1) Is my petition within the will of God and 2) am I praying in faith? If we can answer in the affirmative to those two questions, then all that we need is a mountain of persistence. We need to take a firm stand, pressure God, and cry long and loud to Him. God always hears the prayer of faith. Without a doubt He will hear and answer in His own way and time, and the Church will grow in its effective witness and in the unity of the faith.
We are indeed one body, however many different labels may be applied to the individual members. Let’s put aside our differences and let us all together hang tough in our prayers to God.
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