“The entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ But if you are always biting and devouring one another, watch out! Beware of destroying one another.” (Gal. 5:14-15)
Lord Jesus, summer is usually when leaders from different denominations, church networks, and gospel ministries gather for their most encouraging and exacting meeting of the year. My own “tribe” (the PCA) will meet in Memphis this week. Rich fellowship, complex judicial matters, overtures, corporate worship, tenderness and tension… it all gets compressed into the better part of one week.
It’s a week that fuels my gratitude for so many dear friends, but it also intensifies my longing for your return, Jesus. As I meditate and pray this morning, there are over 22,000 different denominations in the world—all claiming allegiance to you. Theological, cultural, and personal differences will remain until we are glorified, and no longer “know in part” (1Cor.13:9-10). But our “loving in part” has become way too tolerated, normalized, and justified. Forgive us and free us.
You prayed (pray) for our unity—not uniformity, and everything you prayed for will be fully realized. It’s why we eagerly groan for the Day when it will be impossible for us to not love perfectly. We will see you as you are and we will be made like you (1Jn.3:1-3). Never again will “diss,” dismiss, or distrust one another. Never again will we experience “us versus them-ness,” or weaponize labels to empower ourselves. Never again will we “bite and devour” those you came to love and cherish.
Only and forever will we love as you love us, Jesus. It will be impossible for us to sin in thought, word, or deed. Hallelujah! May the “already” of our great hope become more obvious as we await the “not yet” of that glorious Day. So Very Amen.
