July 2026 Blog
Blog July 2026
Living in unity as the body of Christ
You were all called to travel on the same road and in the same direction, so stay together, both outwardly and inwardly. You have one master, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who rules over all, and is present in all. Everything you are and think and do is permeated with Oneness. But that doesn’t mean that you should all look and speak the same. Out of the generosity of Christ, each of us is given his own gift. (Eph 4. 4-7 The Message)
I hope that you are enjoying our series on Ephesians, but you may also find 1 Corinthians 12.12-31, fits with this blog.
When I look back at my life, I can see how I totally misjudged myself. I did not realise that I was part of the body of Christ. I used to think that I was no good as a Christian especially as a church member. I could not make cakes or sew; my singing was very out of tune and craft was beyond me. I was not any good at DIY either or even gardening back then. This gave me the opinion, quite wrongly that I wasn’t any good to the church, because this is what I saw committed church members doing. Yet, I worshipped at church, joined youth events and had youth Bible reading notes which were important to me. I had begun my journey, following Jesus.
I never knew that God was going to call and equip me to ordained ministry and in some ways that’s the important bit. We do not need to worry about what we will do in the future, or what we are not good at or wish that we were like someone else. God has given us different gifts, and has a plan for each one of us, and as we work together as the body of Christ, we will compliment each other. I could not do what I’m doing now, if God hadn’t called me to this, but I also recognise, that I do have a responsibility to put time and energy into being the person that I have been created to be. I don’t wake up on a Sunday morning and treat God like a magician, and say, “Dear God, please write a sermon for me for 9am”. But I am a work in progress. We all are, but none of us are the finished article.
We have one God, one Son Jesus Christ and one Spirit. We are all one body, one community of people. Sometimes, we argue over things that do not matter. Does a particular thought or way of doing something, bring us closer to God?
Warren Wiersbe, one of my favourite scholars, says it is “Our responsibility is to guard, protect, and preserve that unity”. This does not mean uniformity. We are not meant to be the same, to think the same and to do the same thing. If we were all the same, the body would not function very well, if at all. For the body of Christ to work together, we must have grace for each other. Otherwise, we would always be having arguments and falling out. We all have a responsibility to work at unity. It is okay to disagree but let’s disagree in love not with some kind of grudge or hurtful speech. God has also given us spiritual gifts, that will help us to support each other, build up the body and give glory to God. (Wiersbe, W. (2007), The Wiersbe Bible Commentary, David C Cook)
We all experience different emotions, and make mistakes, we can think that we are a calm and gentle person, but then someone says something that is outrageous, or they accuse us of something that is just not true and we feel anger within us, and maybe a little bit spills out. We want revenge. We want to get our own back or at the very least, prove them wrong. The Message version says,
Go ahead and be angry. You do well to be angry – but don’t use your anger as fuel for revenge. And don’t stay angry. Don’t go to bed angry. Don’t give the Devil that kind of foothold in your life (Eph 4.26-27 Message).
Paul views unity as especially important. The devil will try and get in through any cracks. I believe that we should love each other as Christ has loved us, but sometimes we are judgemental, sometimes we only want to welcome people like us into our church family. Whatever kind of worship we prefer, whatever our political views and our theology on different issues, we need to work on unity, and as Tom Wright says, “we need to overcome, demolish and put behind us the disunity we still find ourselves in”. (Wright, Tom. (2002), Paul for Everyone, The Prison Letters, SPCK)
This means that the love of God which we receive, is for us to reflect back out, it’s to give out to others, not just to enjoy for ourselves. According to Warren Wiersbe, love is the ‘circulatory system of the body’ (Wiersbe, 2007). Imagine if we lived as though love was being pumped into our heart and out around our body.
Another key part of our calling is to live out hope, the hope that we have through Christ dying on the cross for us. Every decision, every day, every moment should be for Christ and not against him. This is our calling, to live for Christ in unity with him and each other through the Holy Spirit. We have one Spirit, one baptism, one faith, one true God.
We need to speak the truth, sometimes truth to power. When the system is wrong, when it is unjust, or weighted towards the rich or powerful, do we stand up as Christians, led by God, seeking justice or do we turn away and pretend that it has nothing to do with us? Maybe we think that we are too small and insignificant to make a difference? We are called to bring justice to the oppressed.
Being part of a body helps us to mature. Some Christians pray at home and join online services. You can choose a different church each week if you do this. For those who are housebound online church may be helpful, but most of us, need to meet together to grow together. Saying that we are Christian but not going to church misses the point of meeting together, as a gathered community on a Sunday and being sent out into the world at the end of the service. If we are all truly part of the body, we will all be able to be a part of the wider community, giving and receiving, loving and forgiving, encouraging and helping others to grow. Isolated Christians cannot be ministered to and cannot minister to others. We all need to be part of a Christian community and hopefully, a smaller group such as a Lifegroup as well. Meeting to study and pray together and to occasionally challenge each other in love, can facilitate our growth in Christ.
The greatest gift we have is Jesus. The greatest gift that we can give anyone is Jesus. Let’s share Jesus with those who do not know him, and let’s try to live as the body of Christ. Are we humble and patient, do we forgive and accept each other? We are all flawed, so let’s be gracious to each other, just as Christ is gracious to us.
Kathryn Elsmore, Curate