When we speak of the body of Christ, we may mean the physical body in which God clothed himself in flesh. More often, however, we are referring to that to which we as believers were called, to be one body and one spirit. "There is one body and one Spirit, just as there is one hope to which God has called you." (Ephesians 4:4) When we are truly in Christ, we are united not only with him but also, through him, with everyone who has been saved by his grace. We can speak of relationships with other believers in the body of Christ only on the basis of the prior relationship we have with Christ.
Sometimes I am very disappointed by the lack of love between believers, and that the congregations are not made up of a broader spectrum of believers. Why is there one congregation for Ethiopians, another for Arabs, and another for Jews? Why do people of different social groups, languages, or colors not go to the same assembly and serve the Lord together? Isn't this what Christ intended?
What is more, we sometimes find little love between churches, sometimes, it seems, even less love than one finds toward non-believers. We need to come back to these verses and ask the Holy Spirit to help us be built together. We need to ask Jesus to help us love one another so that together we may glorify God.
I pray that my children will minister in a church with elders who are Ethiopians, Arabs, Jews, and the like, that the congregation will also be made up of all sorts of people and ethnic communities, united in the blood of Christ.
The well-known pastor Charles Spurgeon once wrote: "The church is always quarrelling, but did you ever hear that the devil and his confederates quarrel? . . . They are so united that if at any special moment the great black prince of hell wishes to concentrate all the masses of his army at one particular point, it is done to the tick of the clock, and the temptation comes with its fullest force. . . . Ah, if we had such unanimity as that in the church, if we all moved at the guidance of the finger of Christ, if all the church could move in one great mass to attack a certain evil, how much more easily might we prevail!"
- 1 MAY -