- Unifying Love
When each part is working properly, [it] makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. – Ephesians 4:16
Most people know what it feels like to have a single body part not work properly. The sore or injured part grabs your focus so that you are less able to appreciate all the body parts that are functioning well. Something as small as a paper cut can attract your attention for several hours.
Ephesians 4 describes how the Church is to work together as one body. Unfortunately, the political disharmony in the United States can also be felt within the Church. How can God’s people focus on Jesus and maintain unity amidst the current discord?
People who follow Christ love justice as the Bible commands, and they want to do the right thing. In a general sense, they even agree on what is just. The difficulty is in the details. How do you respond to issues such as crime, poverty, and national security? You may wonder how a fellow Christian could support the political side that they do.
Pray that the desire for justice in this nation would be founded in the wisdom God gives. Pray for the Church to be united in accomplishing the Lord’s will in the challenges facing the United States. Pray for wisdom for all the citizens and governing officials of this nation to bring about true justice on each issue. Pray that every member of the body of Christ would do their part so that the Church will function in unity as it is intended, building itself up in love. Jesus said, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).
Today’s Verse: Ephesians 4:16
from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
All Scripture quotations and audio are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Recommended for further reading: 1 Corinthians 1:18-31
8 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written,
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 30 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
All Scripture quotations and audio are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
