She held me so tight today and looked at me with tear-filled eyes as I said goodbye. Jesu is a woman from the farm who clearly knows and loves Jesus Christ. She, Agrippa (woman mentioned before), her husband Juan and Louisa have been the definition of welcome to us. Whenever we would go to sit with them and chat or seek to serve them we were immediately greeted with warmth and hospitality. I was continually amazed by their generosity and continued welcome. I cannot begin to mention how many conversations and how many words of wisdom and encouragement I have received from each of these individuals.
What breaks my heart, though, is that each of them tells us the same story. The community in which they live completely lacks unity. It seems they each believe there is a great problem with partiality, jealousy and judgment among other things. If you talk with any one else throughout the community, they would agree in kind. These community elders see these problems but cannot grasp the solution.
I do not know really why I feel the need to write about this today except to say that this is one of the most tragic things that happens to the church. I have seen it in the United States and now here on a farm outside San Juan. If we really knew what it was to love the way Christ does, I believe our divisions would cease.
The last prayer of our Lord for us at the garden was one against division. “That they may be perfected in unity, so that the word may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved me,” the Gospel of John reads (John 18:23). Jesus prayed that we might be one in Him so that the world may know Him and the love of the Father. If this community does not come to a place of unity, if our cities do not unify under Christ, if the church fails to come together in the name of Christ, are we effectively communicating and demonstrating the Gospel of Jesus Christ?
Colossians three describes the relationship of love and unity in this way: “Beyond all these things put on love, with is the perfect bond of unity” (Colossians 3:14). I am realizing through the community’s disunity and the reminders of God’s Word that the only thing that will unify us as a body is love.
Love is patient, kind, it is not jealous and does not brag, it is not arrogant, it is not easily provoked, does not keep record of wrongs suffered, it rejoices in the truth and not the stumbling of others, it bears all things, believes all things, hopes and endures all things. Love never fails. (Pieces of 1 Corinthians 13:4-8).
Can we be these things to each other? If we do not love each other well, the world will never know the difference Christ has made in our lives. I pray with Christ that He will bind you to other believers in love so that the world may know. I also pray that over my team and squad. I ask that you would join me in praying for unity and that we might know the love of Christ and how to love one another well that we might love those around us fully.
