Therefore I, a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God. Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace. For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, in all, and living through all.
Ephesians 4:1-6
There is a lot said about the need for being united as
families, friends, citizens, churches, all the myriads of groups,
organizations, and, in short, members of the human race. There is also much written and spoken on the
topic of how to achieve that in any culture.
The Apostle Paul’s words to people he loved dearly, the believers at
Ephesus, contain the key to unity, a singularly-effective habit for cultivating
unity…he encourages them to always be humble and gentle, patient, and
magnanimous.
This describes the character of those who are easy to be
around. The opposite of this would be bragging,
raging, intolerant, and selfish. And when you unpack it that way, easy to be
around and difficult to be around are not hard to distinguish. The former is a calm ride through a quiet
park on a Sunday afternoon; the latter is a wild-ride on a carnival roller-coaster. It’s hardly necessary to say it, but, while the
latter may be more exciting, the former promotes peaceful ability to think.
Jesus put an eternal view on unity. In fact His priestly prayer for each of us
centers on how important God views our unity:
“I am praying not
only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their
message. I pray that they will all be one, just as you
and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will
believe you sent me. “I have
given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. I
am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the
world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me. John 17:20-23
Each of the characteristics Paul lists in his
encouragement towards unity for the Ephesian believers (and us), humble,
gentle, patient, and magnanimous, are the personal traits we are to cultivate –
it has nothing at all to do with telling the other person how to behave, or
faulting the other person for destroying unity.
Edgar Cayce put it this way:
For You Today
Guess I’ll work on
my patience today…gently…that would be magnanimous!
[1] Images: Pixabay.com Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©
No comments:
Post a Comment