I blogged this on the War Room blog aswell (blogroll to the right), and although they are similar, they have their differences, I recommend reading both.

Psalm 139 - How wonderfully complex he has made us!

Suddenly my mind is taken off myself. Psalm 139 is often reflected upon for personal edification, for personal knowledge of how the Lord has created you. I have long struggled with self-image, seeing myself as beautiful or accepting the Lord has made me 'good', and for years I have been directed to this Psalm for truth - yet never finding satisfaction or assurance from it, until now. Becuase it's not about ME! (yet I get that it is all at the same time). But, if we are saying that the Church is the Body of Christ, then wow - how fearfully and wonderfully you have made us - He knit us and formed us.

Or in Paul's first letter to Corinth, he says that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit and that we are to glorify Christ with our bodies. Along with the above I have also struggled with putting toxins in my body, in the Lord's temple. And again directed to this verse for conviction and knowledge, but never got it fully. Sure I would live it out in faith, but it just makes so much more sense now. OUR body is a temple to the Lord. OUR bodies together is the Body of Christ, and the Body of Christ is where the Holy Spirit dwells. By poisening MY body I was poisening YOUR body, because MY body is part of the greater body, which is the Body of Christ.

In Matthew, Jesus boldly teaches that if your hand causes you to sin cut it off, or if you eye is the root of sin gauge it out. Again, I'm floored by the idea that it is no longer a personal thing, but for the WHOLE body. If there is a part of our body that is unclean or unholy we need to cut it off. Purge the Lord's temple of all that defiles.

And that's why it is so important to find your role, to know what part of the body you are. If you are not doing what you were created to do you will get weak and tired (as a whole). Figurativly, if you are the feet but are workign with your hands then you will get become weak and fall. We were not created to walk on our hands, try this for a day, not even, try this for a minute and you will soon fall, you will soon discover that walking on your hands will ruin you. Or if your 'role' is blinking, but you are operating the breathing, then it effects the eyes, which will dry out and vision becomes blurry (which will affect the legs in where to go...) Litrally, if you are created to work in helps, to be the aid of the eye, but instead of offering helps you are serving (with your hands) then the prophets vision is hindered (then the apostles direction is blurry, then the shepards could be leading the wrong flock, or the teachers teaching the wrong message....)

Im an evangelist, aparently, and for years I have not seen this and have been discouraged becuase the fruit of this is rotten. Sure I have seen numbers of people confess the name of our Lord but today only a handful of these converts continue to confess the name of Jesus. When using this to deny this 'gifting' it was shown to me that this is when the body part responsible for dischiplship, teaching and pastoring is to do what it was created to do and that I need to do what I was created for.

This is why identity, and knowing who you are in Christ becomes ever so important. If you dont know who you are, or what you are supposed to do, how then do you do it. I stopped preaching salvation and using testimony becuase since the fruit has gotten rotten I figured it wasnt my role to play, and have been wrestling for a long time trying to find out my 'identity'. And without identity you are nothing. If you dont have a passport or I.D Card you cannot prove your existence.

Know who Christ is and know who you are IN him. (In him, in his body - wow).

It's not easy though eh? It's not as simple as saying ok you are the hand, you are the heart, you are the knee...or you are the servent, you are the compassionate or you are the intersessor....you've got to figure out the nervous system, and the immune system and the pinky toe-nail.

How do you do it then???? By consulting the rest of the body!

Oh man, how wonderfully complex this all is.