Unity is a word so often bounded around but with seemingly little meaning, and yet in the church context it's incredibly important.One of my joys in church life is marveling at how seemingly disparate groups of people can be brought together through genuine love.
I'm not aware of any other aspect of life that can bring the unlikeliest people together for the good of themselves and their communities. Local church is amazing!
At Tree of Life we have South Africans, Angolan and Brits amongst us which makes for a great sense of diversity and I believe this reflects the nature of heaven.
In Ephesians 4 Paul talks about how different ministries are given to the church for the equipping of the saints for works of service. Paul goes on to say: "This will continue until we are united by our faith and by our understanding of the Son of God. Then we will be mature, just as Christ is, and we will be completely like him." v13, he then tells us in Colossians that in bearing with each other and forgiving each other, we should "over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity" Col 3:14. Unity is essential to church life but it's not just some pipe dream out there somewhere, it's something that we should be seeking in our own church life.
However, unity is so much bigger than what's going on in our local church. We know that the church is the bride of Christ. I made reference to this in my E post. One day Christ will present his bride to his father. This is part of the joy that was set before him on the cross (Heb 12:2). When he presents his bride there won't be an Anglican bride, a Catholic Bride, a Methodist Bride and a Charismatic bride. There will be one bride, the church. As such unity transcends our local church and should compel us to build bridges between our neighbouring churches. After all, one day we're going to be united whether we like it or not.
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This post is part of a series in the Blogging From A To Z Challenge, April 2013.
It makes me a little sad to see unity today... What?!
ReplyDeleteSimply because it means that this series will soon draw to a close. What a pleasure it has been, a truly rich spiritual gift, to stop by each day of the April challenge. Thank you so much.
It is precisely the "unity in diversity" of the Trinity that moves us. God our Father, Jesus Christ his Son, and the Holy Spirit together make our lives.
And it is the unity in diversity that we share, that so deeply touches me - and has been doing so over the years. I can't help but think of these words from Galatians:
For through faith you are all children of God* in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
We are one in Christ, and once we are fully gathered into Him, all of our labels will fade into nothing.