Unity Seed – Know Your Calling: Bearing in Love

Key Verse

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
Ephesians 4:1-3 (NIV)

Short Reflection

By now we have come to appreciate that if we are going to be “All for One” and be able to answer Jesus’ prayer that we would be one as the Father and He are one, we need to know and embrace our calling. This calling is spelled out clearly in Ephesians 4:1-3 and it’s a calling that goes counter to how many who call themselves followers of Jesus are living today.

Part of this high calling is to bear with one another in love. Paul acknowledges this won’t be easy – it will actually be rather difficult. We will have our differences. We will have experiences that shape us to have different takes on the same issue or event. The calling is definitely not to try to force everyone to accept or follow our position. No, this calling is to lead with love. To love the one who voted differently from you or may have a different racial experience than you or may have a different socioeconomic experience than you. That is the worthy life, and we are encouraged to make every effort to live out that kind of life.

I know I am at times not so easy to love. I am sure you will have to bear with me in love. But, my fellow prisoner in Christ, that is what we signed up for when we accepted this calling. If we are going to be “All for One”, we must know and accept this very high calling to love.

Lord, let this reader and I be “All for One”, and may we bear with one another in love much as Jesus has done with us.

This is the fourth in the “Know your Calling” series of blog posts.