Today’s word prompt is ‘same’. Right away I though of God Almighty who is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. But I realize I’ve already written a thought-provoking post about that. So I had to think another way to approach the word ‘same’. What could it be? Then this Bible verse came into my mind:
Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation. (Romans 12:16, NASB, emphasis added,*)
What a challenge, right? We are to be of the same mind. The Bible clearly states it many times over. But we aren’t, are we? We, Christians, argue over little details. When we should be one in Christ. Lord, have mercy! Show us the way!
Being of the same mind does not however mean that we are need to be the same. There is not one-size-fits-all faith after all. God has made us unique for reason. There is one body and many parts. But this does not excuse us from being of the same mind.
How could we manage to be of the same mind then? We can’t manage it on our own. We do need God’s help. Only when we all live in Christ, we can be of the same mind. When we each take care of our own need of grace first and submit our minds to Jesus, we are ready to live and work in harmony, be of the same mind.
It always seem to come to this: abide in Christ and all is well. How then are we too busy to take time to really abide in Christ? And then we wonder why we argue on little details.
Only when we are filled with God’s grace, we can be gracious towards others. Only when we are in Christ, we can be of the same mind. But it’s possible. We can be at the same time unique on our own special God-created way and be of the same mind with fellow believers. And the world will notice. Wouldn’t that be something? Come, Lord Jesus!
Gracious God,
Forgive our stubbornness.
Forgive our desire to be always right.
Forgive our self-righteousness.
Cleanse us.
Fill us with your love and grace.
Show us how to live in harmony,
how to be of the same mind.
Enable us to live the way you want us to live.
May our way of living bring glory to you.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen
Q4U: Is being of the same mind a struggle for you? How do you go about it?
Be blessed, my fellow pilgrim, as you learn to be of the same mind!
* [As you might have noticed, I enjoy reading the Bible in different translations and love comparing them. I have started linking the Bible verses to Biblegateway.com so you can easily read (and compare) them in the different versions I’ve used while preparing each post.].
Image courtesy of creationswap.com, design Mari-Anna Stålnacke. Linking up today with Dance with Jesus, Faith-filled Fridays, Five Minute Friday, and WordswithWinter.
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