Monday 30 December 2019

No barrier

For he himself is our peace, he has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to one God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.                         Eph. 2. 14-16




Jesus is peace. He also brings peace to all who look to Him. The reference here to two becoming one, I take to refer to the Jew and the Christian. Christ was a Jew. He was also the Christ. He destroyed the barrier that was between the two groups of people. He removed the dividing wall. He also overcame the regulations that caused separation between the two peoples and God. He brought them together as one, the united body of Christ. Through Christ and the cross, the two separate entities were reconciled and united. In God there is no separation. How sad it is that separation still exists in reality.

I move now from the separate entities of the Jewish and Christian peoples to the divisions that exist within the community of Christian denominations. The differences and barriers are, surely, the most ungodly manifestations of religious practices. Where is the unity of which the psalmist spoke (psalm 133)? where is the peace that Jesus made available to all who would receive it? Paul reminds us of our true identity. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. ( 1 Cor. 12.27) There are many parts, but only one body. If only the church, in its various guises, would come together as the one, true body of Christ! Christ’s mission fails through the divisions of humanity. One day we will be called to account. I pray I can answer in the affirmative, and the positive, and with integrity and truth.


Most Loving God,
I feel for the ways in which Your body dishonours You. I repent on behalf of all who profess to be Christian believers, yet who do not follow Your ways and do not live and practice as You would have us do.
I pray that You will rise us up in a revived body. Let us know, and become, true Christians obedient to all Your ways, and giving ourselves fully into Your will. Amen.

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