One

The number one should be your favorite number.

Ephesians 4:3-6  Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace.  4  For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future.  5  There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism,  6  and one God and Father, who is over all and in all and living through all.

1 Corinthians 8:6  But we know that there is only one God, the Father, who created everything, and we live for Him. And there is only one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom God made everything and through whom we have been given life.

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People in the church come from every racial, cultural and social background. There are people that have been involved in sin that leads to prison time and there are others that have been involved in more socially acceptable sin. There are some that have been in the church since they were in the womb. God's family is full of variety.

All of these differences can make a lot of trouble in the body of Christ but we must not allow these differences to spoil the unity that God desires in the church. We see our differences as a really big deal but God isn't looking at all of that, why would he? He only sees people that are his children and people that need to be his children. The only reason we get so busy checking out the differences between us is so that we can compare and judge one another.

We get distracted and forget to look at what we have in common:
✔ Body ✔ Spirit ✔ Hope ✔ Faith				✔ Baptism ✔ Lord ✔ God ✔ Father

The things that we have in common are far greater than our differences and they are also far more important than our differences. Despite our religious differences, there is one body of Christ which all have the same hope for our eternal destiny. We are a bunch of ordinary people that have been chosen by the one Father, the one Son and the one Holy Spirit to be a part of the one body of believers.

Romans 15:5-7 May God, who gives this patience and encouragement, help you live in complete harmony with each other, as is fitting for followers of Christ Jesus. 6 Then all of you can join together with one voice, giving praise and glory to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 7 Therefore, accept each other just as Christ has accepted you so that God will be given glory.

We all know what it looks like when our physical body doesn't work right, life is a challenge for people that have body parts that do not work properly, unfortunately we all have seen the body of Christ work in much the same way. There are a lot of mischievous body parts that are not working for the common good. Some parts want more attention that they should have and some parts are a lot more maintenance than they should be.

We should all be working for the same goal of glorifying God and leading others to him. The world should look at us with wonder and amazement because we are one. They should be drawn to us because of the unity and love that we have for each other. They should look at Christ followers and think "I want to experience that."

Someday we will be one and we will join together with one voice to sing praises to God, too bad that isn't a reality on earth today, the events of world history would be so much different if God's people had put unity into practice.