Introspection: There Is No I in Christ

I share these thoughts, hoping they are of help to someone else.


There Is No I in Christ

Scripture:

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we are all baptized into one body... and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

1 Corinthians 12:12-13

Your will above all else, my purpose remains
The art of losing myself in bringing You praise
Everlasting, Your light will shine when all else fades
Never ending, Your glory goes beyond all fame

My heart and my soul
I give You control
Consume me from the inside out
Let justice and praise
Become my embrace
To love You from the inside out

From "From the Inside Out" by Hillsong United

Last month, as I anticipated starting my new job, I spent a couple of days doing some volunteer work. The college ministry with which I am involved held its fall break mission project at a nearby boys' home, so I was privileged to join some of my college-age friends in doing some odd jobs around the place.

When we arrived the first day, I saw two other friends who, knowing that I work work with computers, asked me to help them with a problem they were having with home's computer network. For part of the time, instead of working with my college friends as I had expected, I left them behind to join another friend in running tests, trying to diagnose the network problems. We were not able to resolve the problem in those two days, but we did discover some important clues.

I enjoy doing volunteer work, but this experience made me realize that I have a great deal to learn about presenting myself as a "living sacrifice" to God. The truth is that I had my own agenda. Traditionally, service work has been an opportunity for me to get away from computers. With a field that requires me to rack my brain figuring out problems, manual labor can be theraputic. Instead of working on computers, I wanted to spend these two days doing grunt work with my friends in the group. It was not a sinister agenda, but it was still an agenda.

In the First Epistle to the Corinthians, St. Paul calls all followers of Jesus Christ collectively the "Body of Christ." What he means by this is that, like the parts of the body, each follower has a different purpose in the ministry of Christ. Though we all don't have the same gifts, we all have something to bring to the table. No one person's place in the body is any less important than anyone else's, so we shouldn't envy the gifts of others but do the best to cultivate our own. ¹

We Christians are all part of something far greater than ourselves, so sometimes our own wants and needs must be put aside so that the Body can function better as a whole. As Christians, we are called to die to ourselves and live for God's purposes. Our lives should echo the words of John the Baptist, "He [Christ] must increase, but I must decrease." ²

Though I wanted to be the hands that did the cleaning, painting, and organizing, for part of the time, I was called to be the hands that serviced the computers in one of the classrooms. Of course, this was only part of the time. I still got to do the other things with the group, and I even got to go to dinner with them at the end of the day. Even though working on the computers was not something I really wanted to do that day, I am glad that I got to use my gifts for God. I am also thankful that God used this time to teach me this important lesson.


Notes:
1 - I Corinthians 12:12-31
2 - John 3:30