As God Joyfully Draws Us Into Unity In His Son
He made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory.
Ephesians 1:9–12 NIV Read More
Unity is tricky. You can have unity in appearance between an oppressor and the oppressed person. You can have unity in a business when everyone is afraid to question the boss, but they all whisper and gripe after a meeting. You can have unity at Easter brunch as long as nobody brings up Aunt Marlene’s live-in boyfriend.
These are not pure unity.
God’s plan is to bring everything in this conflicted world and mold it into unity and conformity with His will. That sounds like the bad guy in an action movie, and it would be––if it wasn’t God’s will. God’s will is perfect and complete. He cares deeply about all of His creation and knows with unselfish wisdom what is the best for all of us.
Christ is the fulfillment of that will. Christ is the embodiment of what the Kingdom of Heaven looks like and the instigator and sustainer of that Divine Will. Christ’s life on earth sets the stage in a way that we can see and understand to prepare us for that kingdom. When that kingdom is fulfilled and all evil is wiped out forever, we’ll be united in the way we follow Christ.
On time a bunch of friends built Lego cars with my kids with the plan that we’d all have a race. There were some pretty cool cars, considering the vast assortment of Lego that we had to choose from. Once they were all made, we tied strings onto the front of all of them and pulled them around the house. To illustrate a point that we had been talking about unity, we put all of the strings through a single Lego brick that had a hole in it. When we pulled all of the strings at once, toward that one point, they all crashed into each other in a heap, and they all crossed the finish line at the same time.
As we are all conformed into the image of Christ, we are all made better, but not better than one another. We are all united into the same destination, and we all draw together to the glory and brilliance of the One that drew us.
Only God can work such perfect unity that everyone involved agrees with Him from the depths of their soul. Philippians 2 says that “every knee will bow and every tongue confess,” at the name of Jesus. When all sin is taken away, no one has the obstacles of their pride or sin, every part of creation will submit to the gracious King.
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