body of christ

Body of Christ
The Bible clearly states that as followers of Jesus, as Christians that we are the body of Christ. It is clear that Jesus is the head of His body, that we are not under subjection to priests or pastors or any man, but only under Jesus Christ Himself. He is the head he motivates our responses and actions as part of the body. It ultimately comes from the head and the brain, being Jesus. Furthur proving the point that there is nothing in us that is good, but it all simply flows from Jesus. We are just the conduits in which He has chosen to reveal himself in the world today. This is a very awesome opportunity, this means we actually get to have God live through us. That He has chosen to now intervene with this fallen world through us, of course mainly through Jesus. But we being the body have a part of this. The head is what motivates the action. But the body is what is seen doing the action. We have the awesome opportunity to have our lives used by God to show Himself to the world. So when we really think about phrases like "preaching with your life", "living out your christianity" or things like this. This is really what we are called to do. We are not called to do it on our own. We have Jesus. God actually lives through us. It is our job to be humble enough to admit that we are just the body that we can do nothing without the head. That we can't function without it. That the head must get all the credit for what the body does. So we need to stop trying to live our lives for God and just let God live through us. We need to recognize that we ourselves can not do any good a part from Christ. This is a difficult thing to swallow sometimes as human beings, that the first step to honoring God is not doing good things for Him. but rather admiting our frailties and our inabilities and then just being obedient and letting God live through us.This task of being the body of Christ is very challenging at the same time. That often times being the body of Christ and claim that we are, all eyes will be upon us and that is what should happen when we let others around us know that we are followers of a living God who choses to reveal and interact with mankind and has chosen us as followers of him to live our lives in a way that points to Him. But with all the eyes on us, people will often see how often we fall and misrepresent Christ. And this happens a lot. This bothers me a lot too. Becuase of all the people who claim to follow Jesus, but yet refuse to yeild their bodies and lives to allow God to live through them and to be living glimpses of God and redemption to people aroudn them through the way they live their lives. But I also must remember being human beings, being prideful, which is at the sinful nature of every human being I believe, we will fall and misrepresent Christ often times. And this is unfortunate, but this happens all the time to even the most passionate followers of Christ. This happens when our fallen sinful nature wins out over our redeemed, new nature that Christ has given us in salvation.The whole concept of Jesus being the head of the church also has implications in the realm of the structure of churches today. The question that has been buggin me lately is the concept of the pastor leading and running a church. Nowhere in the Bible is the term pastor a position, it is used mostly as a verb. Yes there is the need to for church planters, apostles, prophets and teachers today. But is the way we have churches set- up unbiblical having one person run the church, the body. Shouldn't the body function as a unit, each memeber contributing equally, with Christ as the head?Anyway enough rambling.....Confessions of a recovering pharisee, hopeful church planter, young adult/college group co-ordinator, follower of Jesus.