Communication In the Body

Genesis 3:9-10 (NIV) -

But the Lord God called to the man, "Where are you?" He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."

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Hebrews 3:12-13 (NLT) -

Be careful then, dear brothers and sisters. Make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning you away from the living God. You must warn each other every day, while it is still "today," so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God.

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As we have already discussed on many occasions, the church (or the ecclesia) is also known as the Body of Christ. This analogy is incredibly powerful, because understanding things about the human body can help us to then understand things about the spiritual Body. Today, and the next post I make, are fantastic examples of that.

The nervous system is the part of our body responsible for our feeling and our ability to move. Electrical impulses are sent from the brain to different parts of the body, instructing our muscles to stretch or contract so that we can move. The nerve endings in those different parts of the body then send electrical impulses back to the brain describing how certain stimuli are activating them, allowing us to feel. However, if those electrical impulses are blocked or the nerve endings are damaged, problems begin to come up.

This is a fairly simple explanation of what is a far more complex biological mechanic in our bodies, but it makes a point: without constant, accurate communication, the human body is limited, sometimes to the point of losing function. The same is true of the Body of Christ. When we stop communicating with each other constantly and accurately, the entire Body begins to suffer the effects.

However, this is easier said than done, especially when we know that we're not living in a way that honours God or those around us. When we know that we've done the wrong thing, our instinctive response is to hide and cut off communication, because then we don't have to face the accountability and shame that comes from open communication with other believers, other members of the Body.

For example, when Adam and Eve first ate fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden, they realised their mistake immediately and were ashamed. When God later came to the Garden to spend time with Adam and Eve, he asks, "Where are you?" Rather than face up to God, Adam responds, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid." He stopped communicating with God because he felt ashamed of his sinful decisions. As a result of both their sin, and their hiding from God, Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden, cut off from the Presence of God, and cursed to die after a long, hard life of labour. When the communication stopped, sickness, hardness, and death entered God's otherwise perfect creation.

To further emphasise this point, I'd like to take a look at two issues that arise when the human body loses its ability to communicate - CIPA and paralysis.

CIPA (or congenital insensitivity to pain and anhydrosis) is a condition in which a person's nerve endings don't respond in the way they ought to, leading to that person being completely incapable of feeling pain. This is actually far more dangerous than it would seem on the surface. After all, "Pain is the body's alarm system."(https://www.verywellhealth.com/cipa-disease-when-a-person...)

Without the ability to feel pain, it is incredibly easy to wound, burn, or otherwise injure yourself without realising it. It is also easy to let a wound fester and become infected, because you don't have an internal awareness of whether the wound is healing or worsening. Bleeding out is another possibility, because you simply don't realise that there is an open wound.

When a member of the Body of Christ is in pain or stuck in a habit of sinful behaviour, but doesn't communicate, we find ourselves in a similar situation. Paul's comment in 1 Cor 12:26 is that, "If one part suffers, every part suffers with it." Even one believer who is living a life of active sin will cause the entire body to lose its vitality. The body communicates its pain and infection so the rest of the body can support it in its healing and restoration. When we refuse to communicate our pain and our struggles with sin to the other members of Christ's Body, we cut ourselves off from this support, healing, and restoration. We only continue to get worse and worse, not just as an individual but as a whole Body.

When this reaches its extreme and communication is entirely cut off from certain parts of the body, we reach a point of paralysis. Paraplegia is one example of this. The nervous system, for whatever reason, has been disconnected between the upper and lower half of the body, and as a result the lower half of the body loses its ability to move or feel - since the brain is no longer able to send electrical impulses to the lower half, or vice versa, all function stops.

Note that it doesn't require every part of the body to be disconnected: just one. There are different kinds of paralysis, each with a different level of severity and affecting more parts of the body. (http://healthline.com/health/body/paraplegia...)

For example, there is monoplegia which only affects one limb - someone on the outskirts of the Body and who doesn't have much involvement in the heart of the church. When they stop communicating, it leaves the body missing a major part (like losing an arm or a leg) but it is still mostly able to function, just not in the same way as it was previously. However, the most severe form of paralysis, quadriplegia, affects the entire body. This is most commonly formed when the nerves and spine running through the neck are severed or damaged, disconnecting the brain from the rest of the body. When this happens, the most basic and life-sustaining functions of the body continue to work, but any ability that that person may have once had to move their muscles and function as they once did has been lost.

When the Body of Christ stops communicating amongst itself and with God in a genuine way, it slowly loses its ability to function. It may indeed continue to exist in a kind of life, but it certainly isn't the abundant life that Jesus promised us in John 10:10. When this happens, we become more about self-preservation than outreach, self-sustainment rather than generosity. We lose the life, fire, and Spirit that makes the church light up in a world of darkness and sets us apart from those around us who live according to the world. In short, we cease to be the church, and instead become a group of people who get together once a week to sing songs, listen to a speech, and hang out with each other - hardly any different from the organisations of the world, and far less attractive, especially to the current generation.

If we want people to take any notice of us and the message that we carry, we need something that makes us different - we need the Spirit of God. We need to move in accordance with his will, holding firm on the foundational truths of the Bible and speaking life, light, and truth to cut through the darkness and lies that Satan deceives the world with. We need to move in the signs and wonders that God has made readily available to us if we would only be so bold as to rise up and take a hold of them, so that people who walk into our building see the sick healed, the blind receive sight, the deaf receive hearing, the mute able to speak, the dead come to life. They will hear prophetic words that speak directly to their situations, interact with people who see their lives and personalities with spiritually discerning eyes, stand in a room full of people who fervently pray for God to move in Spirit and in power upon our nation and our world so that every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Christ is Lord. They will see a movement of the Spirit and hear the Gospel in all its truth, grace, and glory, so that they will be convicted of their sin and compelled by the Holy Spirit to repent of their old ways and turn to Christ eternally.

This is what life in the ecclesia, in God's church, could look like when we are functioning at our full capacity. But in order to see that vision become a reality, we first need to bind our wounds, treat our infections, and restore our connection with the head, Jesus Christ. We need to start communicating openly and honestly about everything, including our pains and our struggles with sin. Doesn't mean you need to tell everyone everything, but it doesn't mean we need to be vulnerable with the believers that Christ has placed around us as wisdom guides. As Hebrew 3 instructs, "You must warn each other every day, while it is still "today," so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God."

I'm still learning to do this, but by God's grace I'm getting a little better each day. If we all do it together, we will stand and rise. If only one or two do, we will all be condemned to fall back into lethargy and an inability to function.

Let the Spirit burn this truth in you and reignite a fire of conviction to live in the fullness he's prepared for us all. I'll do my best to pray for each of you, and I would appreciate if you also keep me in your prayers, particularly as God leads me into these deeper revelations, that I may hear his voice, live out the truths he teaches me, and share them accurately and rightly with you so you can do the same.