UNITY: A GIFT TO BE RECEIVED 

We are suspicious of free gifts. Life teaches us that there are no free lunches, not really. There are strings attached, we assure ourselves, even when a gift appears to be free. We even seem embarrassed in the face of something really free. Ours is a "do it yourself" culture, and we don't want to be indebted to anyone. Perhaps it is our pride, but we hardly ever allow ourselves to say a meaningful, "Thank you." We lust for complete self reliance and are uncomfortable at the thought of really needing anyone else.

This is what makes marriage a beautiful relationship and not just something to endure. The wife who gets the message "I need you" from her husband will be a happy wife, and the husband that conveys that feeling to his wife is doing himself a favor. There are lots of reasons why Ouida and I have a good marriage, but an important one is our dependence on each other. The message "I need you" is mutually conveyed and it is unequivocal.

At Christmas gatherings my family used to exchange gifts for our children when we didn't bother to give each other anything. I recall one of my brothers asking his wife, when his daughter received an unexpected gift, "Is that covered?" We may agree with our Lord that "It is more blessed to give than to receive," but we have hardly learned the grace of receiving without giving. Is that covered? is typical of our age, for we cannot bear to be in anyone's debt.

Is this why we have trouble believing in the free grace of God? Unconditional grace, no strings attached! It is indeed a free lunch, yea, an eternal banquet and we don't have to be good enough or wise enough or right enough to "Come to the feast." Once we learn that we are "put right with God," which is what it means to be saved or justified, not by any works on our part, but only by faith in what He has done for us, then religion will be joyous and not burdensome. The joy of receiving, abundantly and overwhelmingly, freely and unconditionally, is foreign to many of us who have not yet learned to receive. So long as we believe Satan's lie that "We have to do something to deserve it," we will miss the greatest truth in human history, the saving power of God's free grace. Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!

If we could see unity in this light, as a gift to be received, it would simplify the problem of division among Christians. We have difficulty seeing it too as a free gift of God's grace, ours for the asking. Unity is ours to attain, we suppose, through such efforts as unity forums and ecumenical conclaves, or by "working Out differences." That unity is a gift to be received is as difficult for us to comprehend as any other dimension of God's magnanimous grace.

Our response is to accept the proffered gift, and then to safeguard it in our hearts and in our relationships with others. This is what Scripture mandates: "Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace" (Eph. 4:3). Unity is the Spirit's to give and ours to receive and preserve. Even the resources for securing the gift are from the Holy Spirit: "Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, hearing with one another in love" (Eph. 4:2). These gracious resources, humility, gentleness, and loving forbearance are named in Gal. 5 as "the fruit of the Spirit" while "factions, parties and divisions" are referred to as "acts of the sinful nature," as the NIV renders it.

Our Lord's greatness was his humility before God. He completely forgot self in his devotion and commitment to his Father's will. It was in humility that he received the gift of the Spirit from God: "I have given them the glory that you have given me, that they may be one as we are one" (Jn. 17:22). The glory he received was God's presence. God's Spirit; the glory we receive from Christ is his presence, his Spirit, which is the Holy Spirit.

Pride is the parent of faction and division, pride of egoism, partyism, and institutionalism. Pride is too full of self to receive the free gifts of God's grace. Being self-sufficient in its own strength, pride trusts in its own creation, partyism. This is why the proud and haughty person has more interest in drawing the party line than in accepting the gift of unity.

The Spirit gives the gift of unity only to those who bear the fruit of humility and longsuffering, for unity is preserved only in an atmosphere of loving forbearance. Hate, rivalry, and ambition nurture partyism. "Love suffers long" is the spirit of unity. — the Editor