2nd Bond of Unity

Hi everyone, this blog has officially surpassed 1,000 page views. I'm pretty stoked about that. Of course it's nothing in the big world of cyber space but I am grateful to God that every view represents the opportunity to expose ourselves to the Word of God. 


So, we're looking at unity in the church from Ephesians chapter 4. The first bond of unity is that there is one body of Christ. 


The second bond of unity is that there is one Spirit of Christ.


In many translations the word Spirit is capitalized, and rightly so, for this is a reference to the Holy Spirit of God.
 
Against the many evil spirits that exist there is only One Holy Spirit of God.
 
The Holy Spirit is not simply a feeling like a “spirit of unity, or a sweet spirit of fellowship.” He is not a spirit of visionary thinking as if we all are to have the same idea about the church.  This text is not an exhortation that if we will all just think or feel alike we will have one spirit. If that were the case the church would never be one.

No, the bond of unity in the Spirit is the presence of the one Holy Spirit of God. He is one as the third person of the trinity and He is one with each and every one of us as all Christian believers have been given the Spirit of God in an intimate union.

This union is vital. Without the Holy Spirit of God you are not and cannot be Christian (Rom. 8:9). Without the Holy Spirit of God we are not and cannot be part of the one Christian Church. Where the Spirit of God is absent, there is no church.

 

I went to the Czech Republic in 1998, and while there going door to door witnessing through a translator, a young girl riding a bicycle came up to our team and asked us what we were doing. She went on to tell us that she was a Christian and had come to Christ through Methodist missionaries who had come to her country. There was an immediate bond between us. I can’t describe it to you but I knew a sense of unity with this girl that I have at times not sensed in some churches I’ve attended here in the South.

There are as many stories as there are Christians, and these stories tend to emphasize our differences, but in the one Holy Spirit of God we are all the same. We all come to Christ in the same way and by the same Spirit. All true believers are brought under the conviction of sin through the preaching of the gospel. We come to repent of our sin and receive the cleansing Spirit of God in Christ. We are quickened to new life at the death of the old man of sin and we begin to walk in faith and an ongoing growth in holiness.

This is the unity of the Spirit. Our experiences differ, but our unity is preserved in the Holy Spirit.

                   

So what?

I ask, have you received the Holy Spirit? Are you walking presently in God's Spirit or are you trusting in some religious experience you had years ago in your life. Your experiences may offer some solace or security, but they will not ultimately provide you with the absolute certainty of the indwelling person of the Holy Spirit.

Beloved don’t compare yourselves to others, for the unity of the Spirit of God is not what you were, but who you are now and who you will always be in Jesus Christ.