Tag: Unity series

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A People with a Purpose

In last week’s post, I shared a snippet of a note to a fellow Kairos Prison Ministries volunteer, a response to his warm holiday message to me. “Throughout the past year, the word that keeps coming to me is ‘unity,’” I wrote. Here is another excerpt from my reply: “The older I get, the more I value and enjoy each person’s uniqueness. It’s like a symphony: each instrument sounds different than the others, yet they all blend together into something more beautiful than if they were all the same. God is so incredibly wise, building His Church this way.” The Bible depicts the Church as a building and as a body, but in our focus on unity, let’s begin with “a people.”

Sin separates us. It separates us from God and from each other. To the ancient Jews, Isaiah prophesied, “your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God,”1 and through the prophet Hosea, God declared of wayward Israel, “you are not my people, and I am not your God.”2 Of the Gentiles, Paul likewise wrote, “remember that you were . . . separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise.”3 And between Jews and Gentiles stood a “dividing wall of hostility.”4

But God has done what only He can do: create something from nothing. Peter proclaims to the Church, “Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”5 We are a people — a people made one in Christ —and our differences divide us no longer, for as Paul writes, “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.”6 And again, “Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all and in all.”7 Our ethnicities, genders, and other differences remain, of course, but they no longer divide us, for united in Christ we are one with each other. We are a people, God’s people.

So Peter points us forward in new identity, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for [God’s] own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”8 Christ Jesus has made us to be a people, a people with a purpose.

Father, in grace You have made us to be a people united with You in and through Christ Jesus. May we live, move, and breathe as one, Your people in Christ. In His name we pray, Amen.

1 Isaiah 59:2 ESV
2 Hosea 1:9 ESV
3 Ephesians 2:12 ESV
4 Ephesians 2:14 ESV
5 1 Peter 2:10 ESV
6 Galatians 3:28 ESV
7 Colossians 3:11 ESV
8 1 Peter 2:9 ESV

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Unity’s Unlikely Starting Point

Late last year, a fellow Kairos volunteer wrote me a heartfelt reflection on prison ministry in general and some kind words of personal affirmation, as well. His note touched me and moved me to pen a reply from which I share this brief excerpt: “Throughout the past year, the word that keeps coming to me is ‘unity.’ How powerfully God acts when we submit to Him — and to each other — in unity. It starts with each and every man on the team.”

Life, even among believers, isn’t always so harmonious, is it? The word “unification” itself implies separation as a starting point — “E Pluribus” we get, but “Unum” is elusive. What does division and discord among us look like? Ever plainspoken, the apostle James confronts believers for our self-centeredness that divides: “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? . . . You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight.”1 And Paul, with an edgy rebuke, chides the Corinthians for their divisive pride: “I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions among you, and to some extent I believe it. No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God’s approval.”2 Such division is as sinister as it is ugly, for James teaches us, “envy and selfish ambition in your hearts . . . does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.”3

Then how must we commence? Paul exhorts us to consciously choose unity over discord. “I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.”4 In other words, elevate the body of Christ over all that would carve it to ineffective pieces. Then do we for the sake of unity compromise the Word of God in appeasement and acquiescence? Not at all! Rather, even in our differences and interpersonal struggles, let us never lose sight of who we are and Whose we are: “Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.”5 Then let us depart from division and flourish in the oneness that is ours in Christ Jesus.

“Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.” — Romans 12:10 NIV

Father, Your ways are higher than ours. In wisdom and love, You have united us in Christ. Deliver us from the evil one, that we will grow up together and bring glory to Your name. In Christ we pray. Amen.

1 James 4:1-2 NIV
2 1 Corinthians 11:18-19 NIV
3 James 3:14-16 NIV
4 1 Corinthians 1:10 ESV
5 1 Corinthians 12:27 ESV

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The Done Deal

“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