Midweek Message from the Mount - August 8, 2012

I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. ² Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. ³ Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. ⁴ There is one body and one Spirit— just as you were called to one hope when you were called— ⁵ one Lord, one faith, one baptism; ⁶ one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. (Ephesians 4:1-6) 

I’ve heard it said that there can be union without unity.  If you want proof, just tie two cats together by their tails and throw them over a clothesline.  

God isn’t just looking for union in our church, he desires unity among us.

In the chapters preceding the verses from Ephesians above, Paul writes of God’s great love for us that has existed from eternity and has now been proven and showered upon us through Christ.  He writes above, that because you have received the call of being declared holy in his sight and a member of his eternal family through Christ, live like it.  Live like a child of God.   Live like someone who has been rescued from sin and death. Live like someone who has experienced the grace and mercy of the almighty God.  Live like a Christian. And a Christian lives a life of humbleness, gentleness, patience, love and peace, doing everything they possibly can to keep unity with their fellow Christians.

Is that the type of life you strive for? To live in love and unity with one another?

Have there been times when you have not lived a life worthy of the calling you have received?  Have there been times when you have not been completely humble and gentle, patient and loving?  Have there been times when you have actually caused division with fellow Christians rather than unity and peace?

If so, cling to Christ and know that he lived an innocent life in your place, being completely humble and gentle, patient and loving in thought, word and deed.  Cling to his cross where he paid the cost for every time you have failed to live as his child.  And be assured that he gives you the strength and the motivation to live in unity with others.

Satan wants nothing more for our church to be divided.  He wants nothing more than for there to be pride and arrogance, impatience and hatred among us.  But when the center of all we do is Christ, when he is the reason we are together, when we realize it’s in him that we are one together, Satan cannot win.  We are one, dear friends.  We are one in Christ.  May we, motivated by Christ’s love for us, make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.