Thursday: The Mastery of Disunity
WEEK 16
THURSDAY
THE MASTERY OF DISUNITY
1 Corinthians 3:1-4
We have come to see that there were two permanent factors in the coming of the Holy Spirit—purity and power. We come now to a third, in five parts; first—an amazing unity with God.
Wherever life is self-centered, there centrifugal forces are at work, and life tends to fly apart. Where there is egoistic aggression, there division takes place automatically. But where there is the aggressiveness of love, there life tends to come together. Love unifies, and egoism divides. These disciples had surrendered their egoism to God, and the result was that an amazing unity came into being—a unity that extended from the inner life clear out into racial and material relations. They found what Paul calls the “unity of the Spirit” (Eph 4:3). That unity of the Spirit wasn’t just a sense of oneness in a small group, as we sometimes think; it was a unifying principle and power that tended to bring all life into a living unity and coherence.
We will now note the mastery of the centrifugal forces in favor of the centripetal. The first unity was a unity with God. “They were all filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:4). The Holy Spirit is God, intimate and within. They and God were no longer at cross-purposes. Every area of their lives had been brought under the will of God by self-surrender. God had them. And what God has, God fills and empowers. When they thought of God, they did not think of conflict but of concord. There were no leftover issues between them and God. The relationship was comfortable, with a sense of at-homeness. They had settled down in God. God could count on them, and they could count on God; the mutuality was complete.
But it was a mutuality; they were not submerged in God, nor did God override them. God was God, and they were they; but Person flowed into person, Will into will, Mind into mind, and they could scarcely tell where they ended and God began. God was closer than the blood in their veins and nearer than their own heartbeats. If they should reach out to touch God, they would reach too far.
O Indwelling Spirit, I thank you that we can think the same thoughts, feel the same feelings, will the same purposes, and become the same being. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: Today I shall be God-infused and therefore God-enthused.