“Do two walk together, unless they have agreed to meet?” — Amos 3:3 ESV
An excerpt from my book, Working in Us What is Pleasing to Him:
We had reached an impasse. My corporate team had analyzed performance trends and was revising our insurance pricing structure in one of our states, a joint effort we pursued with the office managers responsible for daily operations in [that] region. Opposing opinions led to fomenting frustrations, and though I knew we would reach an agreement, I reported our stalled status to my manager, who offered this helpful piece of advice. “When negotiating, don’t approach the matter as though across the table from an adversary, but from the same side of the table as though confronting a common enemy shoulder to shoulder.”1
He was right. Both corporate headquarters and regional offices operated under one enterprise umbrella, teammates striving toward the same overarching objectives and compensated under the same benefits plan. Unity was a given; we had just lost sight of it.
Similarly, we who are in Christ are one; this is a given, a “done deal.” Jesus pleaded in prayer that we who believe in Christ “may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us.”2 His petition has, in turn, become our reality, for Paul teaches us the Father is “over all and through all and in all,”3 as too “Christ is all, and in all.”4 In Christ, “all things hold together.”5 Through His sacrificial atonement and resurrection, we are made one with Him and one with each other. And as a people united, we band and stand together against a common enemy, “the evil one.”6
Then to a united people in Philippi, the apostle Paul admonishes, “Let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents.”7 His point: We are united and we must live united. Will there be differences and disagreements among us? Of course, so we must all the more commit to discerning truth together and to adjust our lives to what is true.
Armed in my boss’s advice, I reapproached the regional office manager, but this time more eager to listen and more patient to explain. Working shoulder to shoulder, we reached our agreement, grew our relationship in the process, and confronted our outside competition together. Unity won.
Father, Thank You for uniting us with Yourself through the atoning work of Your Son. Grace us to live in a manner consistent with who You have made us to be — a people unified in Christ. In His name we pray. Amen.
1 Paul Nordman, Working in Us What is Pleasing to Him, (Maitland, Florida: Xulon Press), 86.
2 John 17:21 NIV
3 Ephesians 4:6 ESV
4 Colossians 3:11 ESV
5 Colossians 1:17 ESV
6 Matthew 6:13 NIV
7 Philippians 1:27-28 ESV
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Paul Nordman—Author 