“I pray that out of His glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through His spirit in your inner being.” Ephesians 3:16 NIV
Paul is writing to the Ephesian church about temptations. The devil was at work in the Ephesian church. They had begun to argue about who was to hold which position, who was to use which gift of the spirit and they appeared to be losing sight of the goal of spreading the gospel. They were letting their status in their culture influence their position in the church. There were rich and poor people, there were widows, single people and married people. There were older people and younger people and there were Jews and Gentiles.
In the beginning of this chapter, Paul is talking about how Jew and Gentile were to be heirs together in the family of God. This was a difficult idea for the Jewish individuals to accept, since their culture was very adamant about the separation of Jew and Gentile. That is not the case with Christ, everyone is welcome and everyone is equal. So, Paul was encouraging them to remain devoted to Jesus and God, not to the culture that was around them.
Unity can be hard as we are complex individuals. We strive for consistency and similarity. When people are similar to us or ideas are similar to our ideas, then we are more comfortable, but when they are different our comfort becomes threatened. The more different someone is from us or the further someone’s ideas are from ours, the more uncomfortable we become.
That difference is exactly what Jesus was looking for when He was telling His followers to love one another. He wasn’t saying we are to love and accept just our friend who is the same nationality as us or our family member who is of the same economical status as us. Jesus meant everyone! When we are able to be united in Christ, then as Christians we are able to further God’s kingdom, spread God’s word and show the love to one another that Christ has commanded us to show.