All Grown Up: United

Ephesians 4:3-6

Our close relationships are bound by commonalities.  With family, it is blood we share in common. Other relationships are perhaps bound by shared ethnicity or interests and hobbies.  Common values and goals will provide for a healthy marriage. In these relationships which we choose, we collectively follow the commonalities which brought us together.  

Enter into the church, and we see a diversity of families, ethnicities, interests, and goals.  While we will meet those with whom we share more in common than others, we all share one goal, one value, one truth.  Because we choose a relationship with Jesus, we are led as one body by the Holy Spirit.  

God has given us the tools to encourage one another.  We have in common the same comforter and encourager in Christ, who walks alongside us through the pains and struggles of life. We are empowered by God to love one another.  Christ’s perfect love casts out fears and anxieties that keep us from unity.  And when we become filled with the Holy Spirit, we become part of one eternal body.

With this common bond, we are called upon to collectively follow the Holy Spirit.  We must be like-minded, with the same loving attitude. We must live in harmony with one another, uniting in the common purpose of the gospel.

I appeal to you, dear brothers and sisters, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, to live in harmony with each other. Let there be no divisions in the church. Rather, be of one mind, united in thought and purpose.  -1 Corinthians 1:10