Devotion:
Read Ephesians 2:14.
This second week of Advent, our readings will focus on peace. This is the kind of peace that goes beyond the absence of fighting and violence and includes fulfillment. Paul wrote today’s verse to the churches in Ephesus as part of his efforts to bring about reconciliation between Jewish and Gentile Christians in those churches. Can you imagine what divisions their differences would have prompted? Jewish Christians likely continued to eat kosher and follow all the practices of their Jewish heritage. They treasured the Hebrew Scriptures that we know as the Old Testament. Their Gentile sisters and brothers followed none of the food laws and other Jewish practices and were having to be taught about the Old Testament as God’s written Word. The one thing that could bring them together in peace was Jesus Christ, in whom all of them believed and in whom all of them had faith.
There is so much in our churches today that can separate us and even divide us into little groups. Contemporary culture teaches us to emphasize our differences and to go after the “others” in order to prove that we are right, and they are not. Jesus Christ is still the one that can bring us together and enable us to get past our differences that can divide us.
Personal Worship Option:
Think about any differences you see among people in our church. Do you tend to align with one “side” or the other? Now, think about how the love of Jesus Christ and his teachings can help us to celebrate our differences but never let them divide us. No “sides!”
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