We Are All the Body of Christ

There are some things the Lord cannot do for you. One of them is proclaim His message. The message of God’s reconciliation with humanity transcends the bounds of necessity and becomes an inescapable duty. It is a matter of life and death.

A clergyman of the past once said: “It is not enough for me to believe in God if my neighbor does not believe in Him.” This is a statement that makes sense to the Christian. The greatest endeavor of Christian men and women is to seek God and lead others to do so as well. “Seek the Lord and His strength; seek His face continually” (1 Chr 16:11). That means conforming ourselves to the will of God, to the commission to which we have been called, even if we must embody the sufferings and afflictions of our Savior.

No one has the power to see the risen Christ, but they can see Him through your life and your example. Christ’s goals are difficult. If they were easy, most of the world would already be redeemed. That is why we must walk with Christ with the sense of urgency that preaching demands. One of the reasons God chose us is that He saw in us the potential to be workers willing to serve as useful vessels in His Kingdom. I am one of those who believe that God does not make choices simply on a whim.

But good intentions do not always find open doors, and sometimes it is our interpretations of the Truth and of the beauty of the gospel that become restraints and dangerous obstacles to fulfilling the Great Commission, proclaiming God, and working with Him to extend the Kingdom. Sometimes the worst happens: we criticize other evangelical brothers in their work as sowers. The Bible warns us in a passage where Jesus makes His position clear: “Master,” John interjected, “we saw a man driving out demons in Your name; but because he does not walk with us, we tried to stop him.” “Do not stop him,” Jesus replied, “for whoever is not against you is for you” (Luke 8:19–50, emphasis added by the author).

The entire mission of the church is based on working with God to transform lives in Christ and, with Him on our side, taking up and raising the banners of humanity’s redemption in every corner of this planet. Seen in this light, stripping ourselves of the personal—or denominational—criteria acquired in a “cold war” among Christians themselves distances us from the supreme objectives, confuses us, entangles us in aimless disputes, and ultimately defeats us. Who wins the dispute when a Christian—or a group—seeks to establish himself as the most genuine interpreter of the Word, Christianity, and the gospel? Without a doubt, the winner is our adversary. Incidentally, the word Satan means adversary.

The Word tells us: “Do nothing out of selfishness (rivalry) or conceit, but with a humble attitude let each of you regard the other as more important than himself. (Phil 2:3)

The dissensions—the differences and disagreements—among those of us Christians who have borne witness to Christ’s love unfortunately undermine and tarnish the virtues of the Gospel, which proclaims the exact opposite: reconciliation. We must live decently, as in the daytime, without envy (Rom 13:13) toward those brothers who, in good faith, do their work with the tools they possess and who, although they have their own particular interpretations of the Gospel, act with the best desire to save the lost, to serve, and to give the best of themselves. One of the greatest Latin American men of the nineteenth century once said: “All the glory of the world fits into a kernel of corn.”

All the glory of the world crashes against the cross of the One who died after laying aside His own glory. Why do we allow ourselves to be swept away by the swirling winds of differences and dissensions?

Jesus told His disciples: whenever you work in My name to extend the Kingdom—or cast out demons, among other tasks—we are on the same team. Are we not?

How sad it is—and unfortunately, it happens in my country—to see a community where a group of evangelical churches each works on its own and regards the others with suspicion simply because they belong to a different denomination! Christ must weep in heaven when He sees the immaturity of consecrated ministers playing into the devil’s hands in these struggles where we all come out as losers.

With so many beautiful things to be done, we cannot afford self-satisfaction, pride, or vanity! Pride has more than once been the chief cause of resounding falls. We need to grow in Christ, look to His stature, and desire with all our hearts to reach Him in holiness. This does not mean that we should not denounce false doctrines. Folding our arms is to renounce the benefit of our priesthood as mature Christians.

To savor the sweetness of victory in Christ, all of us—not merely some—must board the same train: that of unity, godliness, love for our neighbor, knowledge of the Lord, mutual tolerance and respect, and submission to one another in love as a force that unites and never dissolves or excludes. Christ is the absolute truth, and we are all one body. We all need one another; we need to complete one another without distinctions at the redeeming cross and fight for this brotherhood won by our one Redeemer at an immeasurable price.

God bless you!