This excerpt is from a small book entitled The One Thing: Christ in You The Hope of Glory by Milt Rodriguez.
Singular vision is important. In the Song of Songs, it talks about having dove’s eyes. A dove has peculiar eyes; a dove can only focus on one thing at a time. And doves, by the way, mate for life. They have one mate for the rest of their lives. Whenever you see a dove, you’ll always see another dove. They’re always together. And they have singular vision. That’s why in the Song of Songs it talks so much about the dove and the dove’s eyes. Singleness of vision, singleness of focus.
One focus means no distractions. When you’re focused on one thing, it’s easy to focus on it. If I’m looking at one person, then I can’t look anywhere else. If I look anywhere else, I’m distracted, right? And the way our minds work, they can only focus on one thing at a time anyway. Do you realize this? You can try little exercises to test this. Start by counting in your mind. It doesn’t take much effort, it’s almost automatic, right? Then, while you are still counting, have someone ask you a question. See if you can answer their question and still keep counting. You can’t do it. Our minds are made to focus on one thing at a time. God made us that way for a reason, didn’t He?
One spirit. One mind. One purpose. One heart. One goal. One focus. One vision. The one thing.
Oneness and togetherness are very important in the Lord’s house. All of the parts of the body must depend upon each other in order that Christ would have His suitable expression. These parts flow together in the spirit by something called “agape love.” That is, by laying down their lives for one another. This “one anothering” is one of the pillars of body life. Being the body of Christ is a way of life.
Functioning as the body of Christ is not attending a meeting once per week. It is not going to a building once a week and listening to a sermon, singing a few songs, and then going home until next week. Can you imagine the following scene? Once or twice a week your physical body disassembles, and all the parts of your body go to different buildings in different parts of town. Can you imagine what that would be like? That’s not a real body at all. That’s just body parts scattered all over town trying to be spiritual.
True spirituality is based upon the Spirit of God, and He would never separate and be so dysfunctional. It’s way past time for us to get a powerful revelation and vision of God’s eternal purpose: That He would be expressed through a body of people who are all living and functioning as His body under His direct headship.
“For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free–and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. For, in fact, the body is not one member but many” (1 Cor. 12:12-14). From here, Paul goes into describing the other parts of the body and how they all need one another and should care for one another. Then he goes into describing the different giftings and how they complement one another and need one another.
Speaking very clearly and boldly here: How can anyone read Paul’s description in 1 Corinthians 12 and claim that he is describing a bunch of people sitting in pews in a building with one person up front
doing all the functioning? Paul is describing something totally different. He is describing a body made up of humans who have the living Christ inside of them. Each of them is both spiritually and practically the body of the living Christ. Is this glorious or what? Is this awesome or what? Is this really rare on the earth or what?One spirit. One mind. One purpose. One heart. One goal. One vision. One focus. One body. The one thing.
The true ekklesia of God that we read about in our New Testament is nothing like what we now see around us in the present religious system. It’s none of the following: a physical building, an organization or business, a “service” or meeting of some kind, a hierarchical system whereby there is some kind of chain-of-command, where you submit to someone and they submit to someone else, hence, an authoritarian system. Let me be clear: There is no such thing as a “church building.” There is no such thing as a “sacred building.” The ekklesia is not anything conceived or constructed by humankind. Unfortunately, the true ekklesia of God that we read about in our New Testament is nothing like what we now see around us in the present religious system.
As I mentioned before, the word ekklesia in the Greek means an assembly or gathering. Of course, in the first century they had many kinds of gatherings for many different purposes. There were assemblies for family gatherings, governmental meetings, political meetings, educational gatherings, business meetings, and on it goes. There were also gatherings of the people of God.
These gatherings, the ekklesia of God, were built and are being built together into one house for the Lord. “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens but you are fellow citizens with the saints [God’s holy people] and are members of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the Chief Cornerstone, in whom the whole structure is joined together, and it continues to increase growing into a holy temple in the Lord. In Him and in fellowship with one another, you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit” (Eph. 2:19-22).
The ekklesia of God is built together into one house for God. When Jesus and the apostles spoke and wrote about ekklesia, they were referring to a spiritual, Godly, and heavenly type of meeting. Even though these gatherings were happening on earth, there was much more happening in the heavenly realms. That is the kingdom of heaven happening on this earth.
One spirit. One mind. One purpose. One heart. One goal. One vision. One focus. One body. One house. The one thing.
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