“Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord
Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions
among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the
same judgment.” – 1 Corinthians 1:10
In one
place Paul writes to the Hebrews, “Looking unto Jesus”. The antidote and antithesis to harmful
division and segregation is looking unto Jesus.
When he is our focus and our mark, it keeps us all pressing toward the
same goal. No matter what comes, if this
is our focus then we will be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in
the same judgment.
Paul,
now a converted and sanctified man, writing back to the new Corinthian
believers is saying to them: I am hearing that there is division among
you. I am hearing that there is Team
Paul and Team Apollos. His extortion to
them is that this is not good. Furthermore,
that there is one team, one Lord, one Captain, and we all march under his
banner and follow his instruction. Jesus
Christ is our chief executive and we follow his order. Who cares if you were baptized under Apollos
or heard the gospel from Paul? This is
circumstantial and irrelevant. Do not love
your heritage so much that you forget who saved you. Do not love your social group that you forget
that you were once an outcast. Remember,
Jesus loved you, called you, changed you, and commissioned you to preach this
glorious gospel to the world. Paul was
well aware of the dangers of harmful division and was trying to cut it
out. Christ is the head and we are the
body, like a cancer, division can harm the body and slowly destroy that which
was once healthy. We can get caught up
in who has the right clothes, the right color skin, the right family, the right
amount of money, the right ideals, the hobbies, etc. We can get caught up in these things
and forget that in focusing on these things we are not preserving the
body. The church physical may appear
vibrant and prospering, while the church spiritual is feeble and decaying. Jesus Christ came into the world to save
sinners. You cannot win your neighbor to
God without first loving them and showing them love. Looking to Jesus, and having faith that he
will diligently and dutifully instruct the body, this perfects the joining and
ensures the preservation of the body.
Love toward Christ and God is the answer to all that is in question. We are instructed to love God with all we got
and love our neighbor as ourselves. Does
this mean we accept sin? No. Does this mean we live without
exhortation? Certainly not, but to quote
a sister in Christ I deeply respect: “think
of a person in your life that you are close to who is lost. A person you love and care for very
much. It could be your brother, cousin,
son, someone special to you. Think of
that person’s face and put it in the front of your mind. Now put that person’s face on every stranger
you come in contact with, and treat that stranger like you would that person
you love so much.” When we look to
Jesus, and love as he loved, our hearts align with his and the divisions that
try so hard to define us melt away.
God
wants us to segregate ourselves from harmful segregation. He wants us to divide ourselves from unholy
division. Within the body, we look to
Christ, we love and serve Him the most.
Sometimes the most difficult thing to part with is your idea of how you
think things should be. If we look to
Christ, he will join us together and help us to bring others into the
fellowship. Division within creates
division without. God loved you and he
loved me, when we were unlovable. Lord
help us to never forget that we were once without, until someone, somewhere,
reached out.
