One in Christ

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. (Galatians 3:26-27 NIV)

We are made in the image of God. All of us are unique in our design, personalities, skills, and abilities—knitted together by the Creator, God, in our mother’s womb.

We are different from one another, and yet at the same time we are all bearers of His nature, displaying familial resemblance to God.

Wouldn’t it be boring if we were all the same? No variety or flavor that set us apart from the next person. All carbon copies of the next, like a product on a conveyor belt of human likeness.

If we believe that we are made in God’s image, that of a multi-faceted God, then our differences display His majesty and glory all the more.

And yet in the eyes of the world, these differences sometimes do not help us see the wonder of God’s many-sided nature. More often these differences divide, rather than bring together, a fuller, more rounded picture of humankind.

Our societal division is not a new concept. We see it across history as much as we see it in our streets, towns, and cities today. But it doesn’t have to be that way. We get the opportunity to form a different culture. As believers in Christ, we have been brought out of the structures and rulers of this world and are no longer subject to the old ways of thinking. Through the renewing of our minds, our perspectives and values shift from this world as we become more like Christ.

Our old nature is dead, and a new creation is born.

Our adoption into God’s family resets our spiritual DNA. We have been born again through, as Ephesians 4:5-6 says, One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. (KJV)

Or as Paul wrote, So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. (Galatians 3:26-29, NIV).

So, what does that mean for us today?

We may not be able to able to rewrite the past, but we can learn from it. We can acknowledge the times when we have made divisions based purely on preference, mindset, or ignorance. We can repent for the times when we have actively or purposefully acted in ways that have divided, or even through our omission.

In Christ, we have a new nature and a new culture, that of heaven. We have been given the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16) and the Holy Spirit within us (John 14:26) as our helper, guiding us through the minefields of this world.

While we should be grateful that we are diverse and can even celebrate our differences, we should remember that in our diversity and differences, we can also be united. That unity has love at its core, and love is attractive to others. John 13:35 says, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (NIV)

Together, let’s show the world that we are people of God through our deep love for one another. A love that binds us, unites us, and alloys our differences. And through that displayed love, we can walk out the ministry of reconciliation that we have been appointed to.

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:16-21 NIV)