The Best Way To Promote Unity
Live a life worthy of the calling you have received … Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
Ephesians 4:1,3
Paul’s concern in chapter four was for one body—the body of Christ—and the unity needed to encourage its healthy growth.
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To do this, Paul emphasized the “ones” of the faith—one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God—and the responsibilities of the body’s members one to another.
Charles Spurgeon adds these thoughts on promoting soundness and oneness in the body of Christ.
WALK WITH CHARLES SPURGEON
“Let us cultivate everything that would tend to unity. Are any sick? Let us care for them. Are any suffering? Let us weep with them. Do we perceive faults in a brother? Let us admonish him in love and affection.
“Let us remember that we cannot keep the unity of the Spirit unless we all believe the truth of God.
“Let us search our Bibles, therefore, and conform our views to the teaching of God’s Word.
“Let us live near to Christ, for this is the best way of promoting unity. Divisions in churches never begin with those full of love for the Savior. Cold hearts, unholy lives, inconsistent actions—these are the seeds which sow schisms in the body.
“But he who lives near to Jesus, wears his likeness and copies his example, will be, wherever he goes, a holy link to bind the church more closely than ever together.”
WALK CLOSER TO GOD
Paul exhorted his readers to unity in Christ; Jesus spent his last evening before the crucifixion praying for the same thing: “I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me” (John 17:23).
The nearer you draw to the Lord Jesus Christ, the stronger your love will grow for others in his body—and the closer you will move to the oneness of heart and purpose for which Christ prayed.
