To Encourage You

Psalm 133:1 “Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!”

One of the things that is constantly in the news today is the divisions that are so evident in the U.S.A.  No matter where we look, there is discord:  division between races, division between political parties, divisions in families, divisions between genders, divisions between religions, divisions between nations, divisions within nations, etc., etc.  How foreign this is to the unity that God desires for His people.  It is unity among believers that is a primary theme of Jesus’ prayer for his disciples in John 17.  This was His dying wish, so to speak. 

But how is such unity ever achieved?  When we have so much that divides us, when we are so different from one another, how can unity ever come to us?  In contrast to the discord and even hatred we see in the divisions that exist all around us, Psalm 133 tells us that unity is good and pleasant – it is a wonderful thing.  But why then is it so elusive?  Well, there is only one way that the unity that Jesus so desires for us, and that is so good for us, can truly occur, no matter the differences among us.  This unity occurs only as we, together, draw closer and closer to Christ.  As any two people seek Him, grow in their relationship to Him, they, inevitably, will grow at the same time in unity to one another. This is true in marriages, as well as in any other relationship, regardless of differences in race, social standing, economic condition, or any other condition that so often divides. 

As we grow in relationship to Christ, we realize more and more the unity that exists within the body of Christ.  Here, we are told, “there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all” (Colossians 3:11).  Similarly, we are told “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). 

Unity is so central to the Christian life, that God has especially gifted His saints to achieve this by giving them unique spiritual abilities.  We are told in Ephesians 4 that “he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers,to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.  Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.” 

So, does this describe your life?  Does unity in Christ describe you?  Are you one that “so far as it depends on you, live(s) peaceably with all” (Romans 12:18)?  If not, please know that the sole reason is disunity with Christ. 

May God draw us ever closer to Himself so that the love and unity He intended between us is an ever more present reality in our lives.