December 4
December 4
For the sake of your spiritual health and growth, it is important to remember that your walk with God is a community project.
One of the dark delusions of sin is that you and I are capable of independent living. We see this independence in children, who do not want to be told what to eat, when to go to bed, or how to care for their possessions. But the Bible shows us that God created human beings to be dependent. Adam and Eve were perfect people living in a perfect world, and yet they were deeply dependent on God and one another from the start. An essential element of their perfection was their willingness to live in dependent community. The shalom of that perfection was shattered when they desired to be independent and then acted on that desire. Horrible things happened to them, separating them from God and one another and bringing destruction and dysfunction into the world God had created.
We live in a world that is broken and dysfunctional. And, because sin still lives inside of us, we continue to have delusions of independence. Because God created us to be dependent on him and others, it should be clear that the Christian journey is not about moving from dependence to independence. Rather, we are to leave behind proud self-sufficiency and to embrace willing vertical and horizontal dependence instead. Dependence characterizes the Christian life and the body of Christ. The church is a gathering of people who by grace have been called into both dependent community with God and interdependent community with one another. There is no such thing as isolated, self-sufficient, “just Jesus and me” Christianity. The Christianity of the Bible is deeply and expansively dependent.
So it makes sense that after spending the first half of his letter to the Ephesians defining and explaining the gospel of Jesus Christ, Paul first applies this gospel to our relationships as believers:
I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it says,
“When he ascended on high he led a host of captives,
and he gave gifts to men.” (Eph. 4:1–8)
May God grant us the grace to live with one another in humility, gentleness, patience, peace, unity, and interdependence. May this create a context in which his work of grace in and through us may thrive.