A Mature Faith
Christ is bringing His Church back to its roots as a social-spiritual movement. We are a growing body of people from all over the world and all walks of life, who live in the vitality, power, and glory of the resurrection life. We are all in process, becoming more like Him as we realize the fullness and depth of His presence within us.
There is so much division in the Church today because we gather around ideas about Jesus, rather than His presence. We have come not to worship a living God, but our own ideas about Him, and the human traditions that uphold and protect these ideas. Because our identity has become bound up in ideas, rather than a common shared experience of a Person, offense and division remain in the Church.
Unity in diversity will remain impossible until we can fully rest in the fact that there is no “right way” to experience Christ. The resurrected Christ appeared in many forms and for various reasons, uniquely adapting Himself to those He appeared to. It is possible to have widely differing opinions on doctrine and theology without compromising Truth. Because Truth is a person, we can trust Him to guide us personally and corporately into “all truth” as we abide in Him (See John 16:13). Our priority as a Church must become personal experiential contact with Jesus.
In Ephesians, Paul writes that the Body must express itself in diverse ways until we all reach “unity in the faith.”
Ephesians 4:11-13 (NIV) “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”
Diverse ministry expressions (including denominational and doctrinal differences), will continue until we reach this “unity” that Paul speaks of. This unity will come from a maturing that is brought on by the “knowledge of the Son of God.” This “knowledge” is not mere facts and ideas about God, but a true experience of Christ as a person who lives within us and operates through us. An experience of Christ, and the subsequent revelation of His fullness within us, is what will lead the corporate Body to maturity.
Imagine hearing that Jesus was coming to visit your hometown for a weekend. Everyone would have different ideas about what this visit could look and sound like, how Jesus might act toward everyone, and who He would spend time with. Everyone would be abuzz with speculation and excitement. When Jesus finally arrives, everyone is filled with joy. The speculations no longer matter… Jesus is in town! Everyone gets to spend as much time with Jesus as they want to, doing what they want to do. At the end of the weekend, Jesus leaves to visit another town. Following that weekend, every person would describe a differing personal experience of Jesus, but one undeniable fact would remain: He was present, and that is what mattered the most.
This illustration paints a picture of the maturity that Paul writes about. As Christ’s glory becomes progressively more manifest in the Church, our differences will disappear, because the reality of His presence will supersede our desire to argue about ideas. The unity of faith will come about from each of us deeply experiencing the transforming power of God. This power will allow us to love one another as Jesus loves us, in order that we may function as one family with one Father. At that time, “we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming” (Ephesians 4:14, NIV). We will be one as Jesus and the Father are one.
