Holding on to Hope: 1 Peter 1: 22-25

Today’s reading: 1 Peter 1:22-25

Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; for “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.” And this word is the good news that was preached to you.

For the past month, I've read so many scriptures, listened to so many sermons, and had so many conversation about unity. As believers in Christ we are commanded throughout the Bible to love one another and to operate in unity with fellow believers. Yet, most people would say it's rare to actually see unity lived out. In fact, in most of my areas of service within Christian communities, I am heartbroken on a daily basis because of a seeming lack of desire to attempt life unified with other believers. The following excerpt from Warren Wiersbe's commentary, Be Hopeful, describes the state of our Christian world right now.

One of the painful facts of life is that the people of God do not always get along with each other. You would think that those who walk in hope and holiness would be able to walk in harmony, but this is not always true. From God's divine point of view, there is only one body (Eph. 4:4-6), but what we see with human eyes is a church divided and sometimes at war. There is today a desperate need for spiritual unity. (page 55)

Ladies, I'm just being honest with you, this is an area where I've recently been tempted to give up hope. Everywhere I turn I see fighting and arguing. Believers seem to be the worst! Where is our hope?

I think I've been making it way too difficult. Our passage speaks very clearly about the way to unity. As believers, we need to focus on the things we share in common rather than the things we disagree on. The family of Christ has experienced the same birth, and we express the same love.

• There is nothing that unifies our first birth, our entry into the world as a human. But, our second birth as believers in Christ is the same for every, single Christian.

• The love we are commanded to share is unique to all believers. We are asked to share love out of an overflow of God's love for us. We don't own it, but we get to give it.

These two things unite Christians of every race, religion, gender, age, political agenda, etc. Every person that claims to be part of the family of Christ shares these two things in common. These are HUGELY important things. What if we lived with dedication to focus on these two things.

So, I can vehemently disagree with the political agenda of a fellow believer and still live in unity and harmony, because we share the same birth into the family of Christ. We can focus on that!

I can live unified in love with a believing co-worker that operates in a different way than I do, because our love fuels from the same Source. We can focus on that!

Ladies, how do you think the world would respond if they saw Believers live with this unified focus? Where in YOUR world do we need to pray for unity? We very much enjoyed seeing your physical location posted in the comments on Wednesday. Let's continue today and list (specifically or generally) where you're praying for unity in your world.

Jesus, You are our living hope! I am confessing to you that it's so easy to get caught up in all the wrong things. We've made this too hard. We're trying to fight every battle and argue our perspective on every case. I'm not sure you asked us to do that, and I'm afraid we're playing right into the Enemy's plan to keep us distracted by things that keep us divided. Our unity will be a force, and I'm claiming that Your people will be united. Show us where we are being the problem. Show us how to be part of a solution. Help us to focus on the Main Thing which is YOU!