The Oneness of the Spirit
Sunday evening, I was delighted how “perfect strangers” could have oneness. The fellowship in our home meeting was an extra-ordinary experience shared by nine people, who, if not for Christ might not even connect in the world.
Ephesians 4:3 tells us to:
“Be eager and strive earnestly to guard and keep the harmony and oneness of [and produced by] the Spirit in the binding power of peace” (Amplified).
In our humanness we look for commonness in such things as age, sex, ethnicity, economics, etc, because this appeals to our flesh. Yet, what is truly powerful is what occurs when our spirits connect because of HIM, “…because you love one another” (Eph. 4:2 Amplified).
Go ahead; invite another believer into your home. Especially someone you don’t normally worship with and you will share the most important thing you have in common, the oneness of the Spirit.
1 Corinthians 12:24b-25
But God has so adjusted the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior part, that there may be no discord [schisma] in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.
Here the opposite of schism is having the “same care for one another.” So the unity is oneness of concern and care, not explicitly oneness of ideas.
The fabric of the body should be so interwoven and unified that if one thread is torn, all threads feel the stress. The oneness is a union of heart that feels what the other feels.