Complementing Christ - Protestant Caucus/Devotional

God exalted Christ "and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fulness of Him who fills all in all" (Eph. 1:22-23).

Here Paul uses a graphic analogy to illustrate the relationship of Christ to the church: He is the head; believers are His body. Paul elaborates that we're to hold "fast to the head [Christ], from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God" (Col. 2:19; cf. Eph. 4:15-16).

Just as the head controls the human body, so Christ governs His Body, the church (cf. 1 Cor. 12:12-31). By His Spirit and His Word He supplies all the resources the church needs to function to His glory. In that way He guarantees that His purposes will be fulfilled.

The church is in fact "the fulness of Him who fills all in all" (Eph. 1:23). The implication is that the incomprehensible, all-sufficient, all-powerful, and utterly supreme Christ is in a sense incomplete—not in His nature, but in the degree to which His glory is seen in the world.

A synonym for "fulness" is "complement." The church was designed to complement Christ. He is the One "who fills all in all"—the fullness of deity in bodily form (Col. 2:9) and the giver of truth and grace (John 1:16). Yet He chooses to reveal His glory in and through the church. Therefore, until the church is fully glorified, Christ will not be fully complemented.

Does your life complement Christ? Do you "adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in every respect" (Titus 2:10)? Do you "let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven" (Matt. 5:16)? You have every spiritual resource to do so, so don't let anything hold you back (Heb. 12:1-2)!

Read Psalm 139:23-24 and pray with David that God will search your heart and reveal any sin that might hinder you from complementing Christ today.

How does Paul deal with the misconception that some gifts are more important than others (see vv. 14-30)?

As a member of Christ's Body, you are gifted by the Spirit to minister to others. Are you doing so?

Just a defining comment:

Grace Community Church is a non-denominational independent autonomous assembly of immersion-baptized professors of Biblically persuaded servants of Jesus, headed by Him alone and without any supra-local-assembly dictators. It is not an episcopacy and has no pretensions to earthly catholicism.

It is a good thing to ponder on John MacArthur's meditation here on what constitutes such a local assembly with firm doctrinal boundaries and a single Bishop (1 Pet. 2:25; Heb. 13: 20-21), John MacArthur ordained as His under-bishop tending and feeding this local flock.

Thank you, MM, for posting this thought-promoting devotion-to-Jesus encouragement of His sole Mastery of each constituent and Head of their unified autonomous local Christ-led temple of the Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19,20) as ordained by the inscripturated counsel of God's Spirit.

What? know ye not that your^(plurality) body^{(the local assembly gathered)} is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you^-all, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body^{the assembly}, and in your spirit^{of the unified communing one-minded assembly}, which are God's.

Amen. Amen.

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