Isaiah - Verse By Verse | Walking through Ephesians

Walking through Ephesians - Day 69

versebyverse | January 16, 2008 21:10

Thought: To me, the deepest, most necessary and satisfying qualities in life are found in God and come to us through His Son, Jesus Christ.

Question: Do I cherish and preserve unity wherever I am placed by God?

Scripture: Ephesians 4:3 (NIV): "Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace."

Love draws together; it does not wedge people apart. Humility, gentleness, patience and forbearance all do the same as well. There is a work being accomplished here through the exercise of these traits. Paul urges us to live worthy lives; why? For our own sakes? No. We live worthily that others may be influenced for good. Here is another admonition that emphasizes doing for others. "Make every effort to keep the unity..." God is a God of togetherness, not separation. The earmark of death is separation. God brings union and life. Have we ever paused to realize that life springs from unity? A man and woman are united in marriage and that union produces children. God and sinners are united in Christ and that union should produce fruit in character as well as spreading to new converts. The union of honeybee with flower produces fruitfulness. And so Paul encourages unity to be kept. We are urged to "make every effort" to keep unity. To me, this directly commands that we keep trying many processes and every angle possible to side-step dissension and confrontation. As a Christian, we especially are urged to this task--it is an important duty! Through humility and love the Spirit of God is maintained in each of us, and its life draws us together in identity, purpose and power, to flourish, be productive and reproduce love in others. Love is ever-growing and stretching and spreading out. You can't put a lid on love.

Here Paul seems to be asking too that just as he prays for the Ephesians to know God so fully he also is asking them to live that fullness of love out into their surroundings. We are to know God's love and then display it by supporting unity. So Paul prays for God to make known love and asks the people to, upon knowing it, live it by supporting union. This is to be accomplished "through the bond of peace." The only way a diverse group of people can exist in union is for them to be bound together by some outside power. This power is God's peace. It comes from God, it is part of His very nature, and it can be ours "in Christ." Peace can act like a binding rope. It can tie together the most distant differences and set at ease their existance side by side. God's peace is the attitude of acceptance of diverseness: that different approaches, attitudes, angles all have worth and value. God's peace respects variety in life, and lets many qualities co-exist simultaneously side by side. In other words, God's peace always looks out to others as having something valuable. It is inclusive, not exclusive. Thus it can rest at ease when a different idea comes along. Where did that different idea come from? Well, all things have their source in God. This is why the Spirit has unity: it is the Head from which all creation flows. And we can enter under the authority of this Head, into the flow of the diversity of God's creation, and be instantly at peace as we allow ourselves to be bound together with others in the unity found through the Holy Spirit.

Prayer: God Almighty, bring Your Spirit to me today that I may be enabled to make every effort to keep peace with others around me. Amen.