Unity Vs. Uniformity

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

God expects unity, not uniformity. Sometimes we get to thinking that we have to all be alike to be in fellowship with people. Fellowship does not mean that we think alike with everything. we might go to different churches, but worship the same Lord. There are many ways to worship him but only one Lord. There are many different denominations but only one faith. There are many different nations but only one destination.

We should be one body in Christ. We are the church. Not everybody is going to be the same. There needs to be different parts of the body to make up one whole one. Someone needs to be the mouth (encouragement), the eyes (discernment), the feet and hands (service) etc etc. All of the different aspects of the church make up one body. We can't all be hands, and we can't all be the mouth.

As Christians, we do not have to agree on everything. As a matter of fact, it’s better that we don’t. If we agreed on everything then the unity of the body of Christ would be on what we agree on and not our relationship with God. To have different viewpoints (whether it be social, political or economical) but still agree that Jesus Christ is Lord, it puts the focus on where it should be- God. If we are always thinking about what we agree on and what we don't agree on, then the focus is on ourselves. If we think about who we worship and why we worship him, then it puts the focus on God, which is where it should be. The diversity of the body of Christ forces our unity to be the thing that we see most. It is the thing that rises to the surface as the rest of it washes away.

Following Christ is not a contest to see if we can all be the same; it is about finding out that dispite our differences, we are one because of Christ.

Here are some scriptures about the Body of Christ:

“We are all one body, we have the same Spirit, and we have all been called to the same glorious future. There is only one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and there is only one God and Father, who is over us all and in us all and living through us all.”
~Ephesians 4:4-6 NLT

Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith.
~Romans 12:4-6 (NIV)

The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.
~1 Corinthians 12:12-13

Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.
~1 Corinthians 12:27