In a holiday note to a fellow Kairos Prison Ministry volunteer, I reflected, “There is a saying: ‘God loves us enough to meet us where we are, and He loves us too much to leave us there.’ I see this among our Kairos brothers — we’re flawed, but God uses us anyway, and over time He transforms us, so we are less like our flesh and more like our Savior. . . It is the best example of the church I can think of. Flawed people [united] on a journey together toward Christlikeness, ministering along the way.”
For on a Kairos Weekend inside prison walls, each volunteer assumes his assigned role, all converging to share the love and forgiveness found in Christ Jesus. Leaders lead, servants serve, and musicians usher us into praise and worship. Pray-ers pray, and bakers bake (over 4000-dozen cookies). Speakers tell of God’s merciful work in their lives, and table family leaders facilitate inmate discussions of what they just heard. It is a modern-day example of an Old Testament phrase, “the people gathered as one man.”1 Realistically, as people born of the Spirit into Christ, we are closer still, for we gather not merely as though one man, but as a people united in one man — Jesus. To the Colossians, Paul wrote, “Christ is all, and in all,”2 and to the Ephesians he echoed, “There is . . . one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”3 We live in the Father’s “yes” to the Son’s petition: “May all [believers] be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us.”4
So now what? Paul directs us as a people united. “Put on then . . . compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and . . .as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. Be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”5
This is life in Christ. This is the way of unity in Him. This is our “yes” to God’s gift.
“Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!” — Psalm 133:1 ESV
May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. — Romans 15:5-6 ESV
1 Ezra 3:1 ESV; Nehemiah 8:1 ESV
2 Colossians 3:11 ESV
3 Ephesians 4:4-6 ESV
4 John 17:21 ESV, emphasis added
5 Colossians 3:12-17 ESV
Categories
Paul Nordman—Author 