Is there any encouragement from belonging to Christ? Any comfort from his love? Any fellowship together in the Spirit? Are your hearts tender and sympathetic? Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one heart and purpose. Philippians 2:1-2
If you get anything out of your relationship with Christ, if it means anything to you that you’ve been reconciled to God, then you must pursue unity with other believers. We are intended to be of one mind, closely knit, joined together like one building, or one body (Ephesians 2:21, Romans 12:5, Ephesians 4:3-4, 16).
But how do we do it? How can we be joined together with people who get on our very last nerves? Or those who have been our enemies? It’s impossible unless we know what it means to be forgiven, unless we have experienced true love covering our countless sins. Then we can offer peace and enter fellowship with others because God first loved us and showed us what love really looks like (1 John 3:16). It overlooks a multitude of sins. It doesn’t keep a record. It remains when all else fails.
But, you might be thinking, you don’t know what they did. You’re right. I am certain God hates the harm that was done to you. I do know they cursed, mocked, humiliated, beat, and pierced a child of God. Same as you. Same as me. Ultimately all our offenses are against God (Psalm 51:4), and the sting for them all was endured by Jesus Christ on the Cross (1 Peter 2:24).
And so He can be trusted with our wounds. He knows the depth of the hurt, the bitterness of the offense, the ache of the loss. He knows the disappointment, devastation, and destruction of the past. He knows that what came before is only darkness. There’s no hope in the past. Our hope lies in what’s yet to come, what’s still possible, what might be.
Jesus invites us to turn our backs on the pain and rivet our gaze to what lies ahead, the breathtaking renewal of all things. When we can’t tear our eyes away from that wonderful vision, we’re able to turn the other cheek, give more than what’s asked, go the extra mile, love our enemies (Matthew 5:39-44). We can ignore the spirits of anger, bitterness, regret, doubt, and fear, and embrace the Holy Spirit instead, whose fruit nourishes unity. We can see past the offense, beyond the offender, to Jesus, who’s getting everything ready for our happily ever after.
God never intended that we keep all His goodness for ourselves. He extends His magnificent and abundant grace to us. And then we are the channels by which His grace extends beyond us to others. We are blessed, so we can bless others. We are comforted, so we can comfort others. We are forgiven, so we can forgive others. It’s possible for us to do these things as a result of the goodness we’ve received. And they are given so that we will pass them on. Our forgiveness and reconciliation is merely a shadow of the restored intimacy that God desires, intends and offers for us.
Hope waits ahead of us. In order to live in harmony with each other, we have to stop looking back and start looking ahead. We have to reorient our focus from what we’ve lost to what we’re longing for. We must hold fast to our confident expectation that in God’s kingdom, all will be as it should be. All our hope for this glorious future waits on the Advent of the King.