Our responsibilities to the church

What does being part of the Body of Christ here on earth mean for us?

Ephesians 4:17 (New International Version)
From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

The Message puts it like this: We take our lead from Christ, who is the source of everything we do. He keeps us in step with each other. His very breath and blood flow through us, nourishing us so that we will grow up healthy in God, robust in love.

Imagine that. As the song puts it: Every breath we take, we take for you, Jesus.

Imagine being so close to him that I breathe in time, so that I scarcely know when I breathe and when he does. When I was first married, I used to lie against my husband's chest and try to breathe in time with him. I could only achieve it for one or two breaths - his lungs are twice the size of min - but when I did manage it, we seemed to breathe as one being, not as two separate people.

Then, admonitions like these become easy to follow:

So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts...You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body. "In your anger do not sin": Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry... and so it goes on.
Ephesians 4: 17 - 18, 22 - 26