The Holy Spirit is your unity for bringing the life and ministry of Jesus into your life and ministry. We have been looking at a lot of Scriptures that are dealing with our relationship with ourselves and other people. God wants to use all that training and spiritual growth to help us get along with the other members in His body. If you have an organ or limb that isn’t functioning correctly, then you will have problems with your body. There will be things you won’t be able to do that others can do.

1 Cor 12:12-13 (NIV) The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body--whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free--and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.

We are learning how to be spiritually healthy so we can function like a healthy member of Jesus’ body. Our contributions will be skillful and normal for the type of member we are in His body. All the things we have been desiring, studying, praying for, believing, and acting in faith on have prepared us for being a good contributor to Jesus’ body. We have become a part that can be relied on and put to use for accomplishing Jesus’ purposes. The Holy Spirit has been not only working on us so we can be healed internally, He has helped us be able to melt together with other Christians.

1 Cor 12:14-16 (NIV) Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body.

You aren’t just able to function properly as a part, you are able to work together with other members. By taking on the attitudes of Jesus (Matthew 5:3-12) and by yielding to the character of Jesus (Galatians 5:22-23), it has helped you get along with other people. You have matured spiritually so you would be able to handle other relationships in a Christ-like manner. You are able to cooperate with other types of ministries and personalities so that their and your gifts work together with Jesus.

But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!”

The Holy Spirit, Jesus, and our heavenly Father have helped you be able to appreciate people and ministries who are different than you. We are looking at all those differences so you can not only appreciate them but work together with them. It is a matter of learning how to help people by finding what people need and helping them get together with ministers who are equipped with those special gifts from God. God will use you in a supernatural way with some needs, and will want you to refer other needs to other members of His body.

1 Cor 12:23-25 (NIV) On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.

We don’t have any parts of our body that we can do just as well without. We need them all even though we have to have some of them to live. God wants us to feel the same way about all ministers and ministries. He wants us to appreciate all of them and work together with them. He is asking us to develop Godly relationships with as many of them as possible so we can help every person on this planet. The more we work together, the more people we will be able to help.

1 Cor 12:26-27 (NIV) If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

God doesn’t just want us to have a casual relationship with the members of His body. He wants us to be so tied together with them that we suffer when they suffer. He wants us to feel honored when they are honored. He wants to give us such an appreciation for all the members of His body that we feel all the characteristics of Jesus in Galatians 5:22-23 for them. Once we yield to Jesus’ love for all of them, we will be able to cooperate, support, and work together with them in a very close way.