received 13 Jun 2005, in response to leaders' retreat held on 11 & 12th June 2005

Hi my fellow workers in YM,

We talk a lot about unity in the retreat. And so I would like to share the below verse with you. There are 2 different kinds of unity mentioned in the NT. The unity of faith & the unity of the Spirit. Each has a slight difference in meaning.

We?ll look at the unity of the Spirit here. Unity of the Spirit is essential in order to function in our diverse spiritual gifts & yet live peacefully with one another instead of judging one another unbiblically.

Operating in different gifts has the tendency to invite people?s judgments to yourself because others (likely those who have different gifts as you) may not understand why you are doing this/that. Yes. We, as spiritual men, are to discern/test all things but not judge unbiblically.

You will notice before unity of the Spirit can be achieved, each one of us must have the desire to walk (and thus to walk) in "a manner worthy of the calling". So how does God describe a believer's every-day walk that's worthy of his/her high calling?
Ephesians 4:1-3 gives us the answer.


Ephesians 4:1-3
I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord,
entreat you to walk in a manner worthy
of the calling with which you have been called,
2 with all humility
and gentleness,
with patience,
showing forbearance to one another in love,
3 being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit
in the bond of peace.


Notice a worthy walk does not begin with an activity that we have to do. Neither does it talk about the achievements we ought to have in our ministries. The Holy Spirit through Paul zooms past all peripherals & deals directly with the REAL ISSUE -- THE HEART ATTITUDES.

A) 4 KEY ATTITUDES are mentioned. What are those?
Simple comprehension.
1/ all humility
2/ gentleness
3/ patience

B) How do these attitudes manifest in a fellowship?
1/ showing forbearance to others in love
2/ being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in peace

Let's do some word study. I'll be succinct. Word Study is essential to know what a word really means; thus we can appreciate the passage better. The result is we can take the RIGHT ACTION and not actions that we perceive we should take!

A1) HUMILITY (tapeinophrosune)
- the humble opinion of yourself,
a deep sense of one's (moral) littleness,
lowliness of mind.

(The 1st attitude begins in the MIND! Your perception of who you are. Do you define yourself in terms of achievements, talents, social standing, economy, appearance , education, spirituality?
Jesus hate pride in all these & says "apart from Me (Jesus), you can do nothing" -- John 15:3.
Here, false humility like self-abasement is not intended.)

A2) GENTLENESS (prautes)
- as a quality of gentle friendliness
(as strength that accommodates to another?s
weakness)

A3) PATIENCE (makrothumia)
- a state of emotional quietness in face of
unfavourable circumstance; slowness in
avenging wrong

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Difficult to walk like that everyday, isn't it??
That is why Paul first gives us chapters 1-3 describing the tremendous richness of blessings & love & grace that God has poured out in our lives as believers. He informed us of our glorious positional truth before he urges us to action - "WALK WORTHY OF YOUR CALLING".

And just before chapter 4, he prayed a "turn-on-the-engine" prayer at the end of chapter 3. This is what I pray too for us all.

Ephesians 3:16-19
...that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory,
to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man;
17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith;
and
that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints
what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
19 and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge,
that you may be filled up to all the fulness of God."
Glory to God.
Amen.

KellY