"United" October 2 Readings: Jeremiah 7-8, Galatians 3:15–29, Psalm 109:28–31, Proverbs 24:8-9

Today's Readings - Jeremiah 7-8, Galatians 3:15–29, Psalm 109:28–31, Proverbs 24:8-9

Devotional - United 

Human beings have a natural compulsion to divide. It is part of our fallen nature, I suppose. Sometimes it is harmless - like the way we divide up on fall Saturdays and Sundays to cheer for our favorite teams (and to hate our rivals as well). Sometimes, it can be pretty serious, such as political divisions. Sometimes, division is shameful, like the social and economic divisions that politicians prey on so often - us vs. them, rich vs. poor. Sometimes those divisions become downright evil. Hitler divided the world between the Aryan and non-Aryan races. For hundreds of years, American society treated blacks as just a little below human. Division is a part of our nature.

It is nothing new. Paul addressed these divisions in Galatians 3:27-29. 

 For those of you who were baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ. 28 There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female; since you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, heirs according to the promise.

When Christ enters a life, human divisions mean nothing before the Cross. There was an ancient hostility between Jews and Greeks, but in Christ, the enmity falls away. Jews are still Jews and Greeks are still Greeks, but racial divisions become less significant than spiritual unity. In Christ, the slave and the free came together in unity. The slaves (generally an economic structure in that culture) did not automatically become free when they came to Christ, but the unity that Christ brought meant more to them than the economic structures that divided them. Men and women were still men and women, but in Christ, they are one. This does not negate other biblical teachings about the roles of men and women, but it teaches that at the foot of the Cross, whether one is a man or woman matters not at all. What matters is that you belong to Christ. 

In the church, that which unites us - our common experience in Christ - ought to matter more than anything in this world that tears us apart. 

Would that it were so. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 3 that division and schism are markers of immature Christianity. If that is so (and it is), then American Christianity is badly in need of maturity. We are so quick to divide based on human factors rather than uniting around our spiritual experience in Christ. We elevate cultural preferences to the status of biblical mandates. We exalt our denominational differences to extreme levels. 

A friend of mine, Alan Cross, made a point that is very important. We sometimes talk about "building unity in the Body of Christ." That statement misses an important biblical reality. Christ died to redeem One Body. We have unity in Christ - we are joined together as the redeemed in our city, in all the world, even in all of time. We are united in Christ unless we allow our sinful and divisive nature to take over and we divide what God has united. We don't build unity, Christ does. We destroy unity when we allow the flesh to do its work. 

In Christ, human and cultural factors are never allowed to divide the redeemed. If we divide, it is because we are walking in the flesh instead of in the Spirit. When we do that, we destroy the unity of Christ in the church. 

Father, thank you for the unity we have in Christ. May I do nothing do destroy the unity in the Body that your Son died to build. 

Think and Pray

Which of the readings spoke most powerfully to you today?
Is the Spirit of God moving you to repent of something you are doing, to begin something new, or to change something about your life as a result of your readings? What?