Divine Order

Paul is asking his readers to live together in the unity of the Spirit, to be a fellowship of believers who love, support, encourage and help one another. 'It is not possible to exaggerate the importance of your fellowship with you fellow Christians. You need their love. You need their discipline. They need yours.'
The prayer of Jesus in John 17:20-23, in which Jesus prayed specif...

ically for the unity of his followers. Jesus' reason? 'That the world may believe' (Jn 17:21).

For the church was to be left on earth for that purpose; that the world might believe. Power in testimony is evidently not something that the church can possess as a sort of separate package; it cannot exist alone. The church that convinces men that there is a God in heaven is a church that manifests what only a heavenly God can do, that is to unite human beings in heavenly love. Wherever the sign of loving unity exists, the world will be convinced.

The greatest need is not simply for kerygma, the preaching of the gospel; nor for diakonia, service on behalf of justice; nor for charisma, the experience of the Spirit's gift; nor even for prophetia, the challenging of the king. The greatest need of our time is for koinonia, the call simply to be the church, to love one another, and to offer our lives for the sake of the world. The creation of living, breathing, loving communities of faith at the local church level is the foundation of all the other answers. The community of faith offers a visible and concrete alternative, and issues a basic challenge to the world as it is.



Each Christian has it in his or her own power to be a steward and promoter of unity.

You can begin in your own life to be an answer to the high priestly prayer of Christ. You can become a small focus of change. If you are willing to be a channel of unity, you will find the power of heaven on your side. Not only will you experience pains and joys of an order you had not dreamed possible, but you will become the scent of life to non-Christians around you. The sight of loving unity among believers arrests the unbeliever. It crashes through the barriers of his intellect, stirs up his conscience and creates a tumult of longing in his heart. He was created to enjoy the very thing you are destroying.

Ephesians 4:1-16 NKJV

I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore He says: “When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, And gave gifts to men.” (Now this, “He ascended” —what does it mean but that He also first descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.) And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

BGD # 2. 3-15-2012 Copyright@DivineOrde