In view of questions over a personal testimony of rapid healing twenty years ago, as mentioned in the first item on this blog, I’m grateful to the Lord speaking through a visiting Spirit-filled speaker Pete Gilbert that weekend. We were on the ministry team and I asked Holy Spirit to bring His words through him – AND HE DID! I discerned it was so at the time and afterwards he confirmed it. Hence my emphases in the transcript below:
Unity and Maturity in the Body of Christ
4 As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
7 But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. 8 This is why it[a] says:
“When he ascended on high, he took many captives and gave gifts to his people.”[b]
9 (What does “he ascended” mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions[c]? 10 He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.) 11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. 16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. (NIV BibleGateway.com)
Hit play to hear Pete Gilbert’s whole message from the beginning at 44:40 minutes:
Can I say that again? – I’m making this up as I go along? – No!
So, three three key things that the enemy always uses, three strategies of the enemy.:
He will always go to try to break communication so that people think they’ve communicated, but they’ve been misunderstood.
He will always go for identity. He will seek to rob you of your self-worth and your self-image and your identity – who you are in Christ.
That’s what he did with Jesus. You know all the time: “Did God say who are you?” here you to going for identity.
And the third thing always he goes for is to try to break relationships so that trust breaks down and people fall apart.
And that I think I would suggest to you and we Paul talks about this the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. This is delivered through peace. And you’re living in a world, we’re living in a world which is riven not with peace at all. As we sit in here this morning, there’s somewhere between eight, well, there’s eight major global conflicts going on at the moment as we sit here and somewhere between 50 to 130 minor conflicts of war going on. In 3,400 years of recorded history, there’s only been 300 years of peace.
So peace is not easy. It’s not. But Paul says this is the work of the Spirit, the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
You I know, you know this. Let me remind you. You ain’t going to find peace out there. Peace must first be found here. Peace to you and then peace through you. Which is why you’re called in Matthew 5 to be ‘Peace makers’. Not peace-keepers, not compromisers, but peace makers. The gospel of peace. It’s a gospel of peace.
And I think that’s why Paul then, it’s lovely, isn’t it? In the the next rolling few verses, four to six. I think that’s why he keeps using the word seven times in three verses he uses the word ‘one’. And it’s like he’s he’s emphasizing it spiritually. He’s emphasizing to the nature of God. He’s emphasizing how that lands on us. one baptism, one faith and so on. And so he uses that seven times as a kind of bang bang bang, an emphasis about unity, one body, one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism…one God and Father of all, the oneness there….”
I’m reminded that whenever we’re under personal attack = we’re over the target!
Richard's Watch 