" [Footnote: I Cor. xii.
13.] The Holy Ghost sustains the life of the Church. In Him we live and
move and have our being. As the bird lives in the air, as the flower lives
in the sunshine, so we live in the Spirit, and when we drink in His
fulness there is growth and fruitfulness.
Have we ever felt this need of drinking into that One Spirit? Everything
connected with the true Church of Christ must be spiritual, it is this
which is being lost sight of in the present day, and it is the reason why
there is so little power and so few conversions.
Have you ever tried to understand why the Church is called "the Body of
Christ"? Think first about your own body. It is the only part of your real
self that can be seen. I cannot see your heart or your thoughts, but
I know what your thoughts are by your words, and what you feel by the look
of joy or sorrow in your face, and by the way you go about.
It is by your body that your real personality is made known to others;
what you really are would never be seen unless your body made it known. In
the same way the Church is the Body in order to make Christ known in the
world. He is hidden from our view, He is unseen, but He manifests Himself
and shines out through us, and He sends us to carry His messages and to do
His Will.
This was the earnest desire of the Apostle Paul when he said that he was
willing that the old self should be taken away so that "the _life_ also of
Jesus might be made manifest in our body.
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