Do you ever have a week or a month where you keep getting delivered the same message? Maybe you read an excerpt from your devotional and then go to church to find the pastor giving a message on the same passage. And then, you read the next story in the cue of your children's' Bible to find it's the same Scripture. AND THEN, your Bible study studies the same thing. I always like when this happens because know I am hard headed and prone to wander. I always feel like the Lord is calling me first with a quiet whisper onto a full out beckoning, arms waving, "Michelle, Michelle, Michelle, MICHELLE, MI-CHELLE!!" And then like my own children, I go, "Oh, were you calling me? I didn't hear you until you were yelling?" It leads me to stop and search out what the Lord has for me to learn because He has (finally) caught my attention.
I was attempting to make it an entire year without a blog post, but I crumble a month from the finish line because I saw the theme in what the Lord has been screaming to me this last year! What a year we have had. We left a year ago, today, for our 6 month Home Missionary Assignment in the United States. (It went by way too fast and while we enjoyed the company of so many friends and family, we still didn't get a chance to see everybody!) As I reflect back on our time in the States and our time since our return to Honduras, I can't but see a consistent yet sometimes painful theme to what the Lord has been calling me to hear: the unity of the body of believers.
The UNITY of the body of Christ in the global church
As we departed Honduras a year ago, Adam and I spoke much of what the Lord taught us through His local body in La Ceiba. Not surprisingly, a much more charismatic culture worships our same God much differently than the Western Christian in the United States. During our pre-field training, we completed a task by which we determined if theological statements were Biblical or a product of our culture. As we've sifted through much of this in mentoring pastors and worshiping abroad, the Lord continues to press the importance of the unity of the body of believers into my heart and mind. Hondurans and Americans may be different in language, culture, how they worship and more, but as brothers and sisters in Christ we have more to be unified by than divided by. John Piper says, "We are more closely bound to our brothers and sisters in Christ in other cultures than we are to our closest unbelieving compatriot in the fatherland." Take that in. As a Christian, you have more in common with a Christian on the other side of the world that you've never met than you do your closest unbelieving friend in America. Your family in Christ spreads far and wide, to the ends of the earth.
So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. -Galatians 3:26-28
The UNITY of the body of Christ in the church in America
Being overseas for three years, we missed much of the happenings in our own church, in our supporting churches, and in the lives of our dear brothers and sisters in Christ in churches we had never stepped foot in. As we returned to the United States, we struggled as we saw how sin had divided more than one of our beloved congregations and created multiple strained relationships between believers. As we traveled the US during our six month stint, we heard story after story of the pain and division. This was weighty and disheartening for us as we were supposed to be recovering from service on the mission field. We shed many tears and longed for reconciliation for more than one church that we love, for many more than one or two friends that we love. It was like watching divorces happen before our very eyes. The desire to be right won out over the desire to be of one heart and one mind...that of Christ. I can easily look at denominational differences with the same eyes. We let our theology, doctrinal statements, church music, and more become something that separates us. We let those things become more important than sharing the one thing we can agree on...that Christ died for our sins and that He reigns in our hearts.
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. -1 Corinthians 12:12
The UNITY of Christ between brothers and sisters
This for me is where the rubber meets the road. How do I live with other Christians on a daily basis? How do I love those Christians I work with, Christians from other missions organizations, Christians that I meet? Do I let no corrupting talk come out of my mouth? Do I edify in order to give grace? Do I overlook offenses? Do I easily forgive? Do I do good towards other Christians regardless of how I feel? Or do I get lumped into the string of sins in Romans 1? No difference is noted between gossip, slander, arrogance, and envy, malice, or murder. Sin is sin is sin. If I am divisive in any form, I do not have the heart of Christ. His heart is UNITY! The Lord has instilled in me this last year a strong desire to be unified with other believers by being like-minded by the same love, being one in Spirit and intent on one purpose. It doesn't matter your role, profession, or calling. What would loving look like being like minded, with one purpose, if we knew that's how we should be unified with every individual who loves Christ? Unbelievers would note a difference. People would be drawn to the light of Christ! We could turn the world upside down!
So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. -Ephesians 4:11-13
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