Spirit of Unity

 DEVOTION

THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS

SPIRIT OF UNITY

Rom 15:5-9

5 May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, 6 so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 7 Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God. 8 For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the Jews on behalf of God's truth, to confirm the promises made to the patriarchs 9 so that the Gentiles may glorify God for his mercy, as it is written:

NIV

Here is what we have been thinking from what has already been said. The fact is there should be unity that is given by the Spirit. That is if we are all living in the Spirit, we will all be living in harmony, all of us, which Paul has made the distinction between those who are strong in their faith and eat and drink whatever with a clear conscience and those who are weak in their faith and feel it is necessary to abstain from certain foods and drinks. We do not feel the need to regurgitate that whole argument again, however, Paul is making it clear the need to accept one another just as we both are. That is we cannot judge each other whatsoever as to how we follow Christ, but we must live in unity, in peace and harmony, having one heart and mouth, just as we already made that comparison to a choir, all singing in harmony, singing the same tune, the same song, sounding as one voice, all praising our Lord. We have to understand that Jesus accepted us while we were yet sinners, with all our faults, without making us first become worthy of his acceptance. Therefore, as in the case of the church in Rome that is made up of Jews and Gentiles, who are the two who have that different views of what is acceptable to eat and drink, and how that relates to the modern church between those who feel the need to live by some law, as the Jews did, and those who have that freedom the Gentiles must have felt, not being bound by the law of the Jews, even though they both had accepted Jesus as the Christ. It is the same for us. We must live together in peace to confirm that we all bring praise to our Lord. This would imply that we should not even think about how we are different in the way we express our faith. If we are to be one voice, we must accept one another as we are, for none of us are perfect, but we all are in Christ. It would appear that we all need that endurance and encouragement from God in order to live in harmony and to have this spirit of unity.