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Harmony and Love

Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble.

1Peter 3:8

A person who is always right carries a great burden with them; even more so if they know everything. Do you know anybody like that  no matter how wrong they might be they are always right? Even when they don’t know something, they have an opinion and you’d better agree; I don’t know about you, but folks like that just wear me out!

Harmony, compassion, sympathy, humility; these may not always come naturally, but they are empowering. These attributes will set you free from always having to know everything, of always having to be right, not to mention the arguments that follow.

The older I get, the more I come to realize that having the approval others in everything that comes up is really not that important. What does matter…

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Ephesians 4:1-6

As chapter 4 begins, Paul commences the next section of his letter, the section that relates to the Christian life. He starts this with a reference to his situation, but this is not a reference that should generate pity, it is a reference that shows his example of putting his faith into action, resulting in his being in chains. It is as though he is saying that he knows full well…

Ephesians 3:14-21

This text is a prayer that Paul gave for the Ephesians, a prayer of power and of selfless love for the saints, a prayer that deserves our review and emulation.

Notice that as he begins this prayer, Paul points out that it is through God that every family derives its name. This is a curious statement, and we might be quick to slip right past it, seeing it as a sort of introduction and missing its amazing impact altogether; let’s not make that mistake today. The sense in which every family derives its name from the Father is not a literal sense, for every family derives its name from God in the sense that it is a relational unit that is bound together by love… and genetics. Think of how God intended for us to live, go all the way back to Genesis, to the garden: We were…

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Ephesians 3:1-13

Isn’t this an interesting little chunk? Paul mentions “mysteries” several times here, and likens these “mysteries” to the “administration of God’s grace”; what could he be referring to?

He mentions a mystery that was made known to him by revelation, and calls it the mystery of Christ. He ends the first paragraph telling us that this mystery has been made known, that through the gospel, the Gentiles are being made into one holy nation with Israel− the administration of God’s grace! Consider this for a second; we usually think of the gospel as being all about salvation, our salvation. The gospel is the good news about the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ which made it possible for MY sins to be forgiven, so I can have eternal life… oh and by the way, you can have it too.

Yet Paul is telling us a much bigger…