What does the unity that the Mindset of the Spirit produces look like? The Lord Jesus teaches us to live a life that is worthy of the hope that is in God’s grace and the power of the Spirit – both of which we are to use to maintain the unity of the Spirit What will this unity look like then?
The unity of the Spirit is much different to the uniformity of religion or the homogenous unity principal. It has little or nothing to do with what God’s children do when they meet together on Sunday – or any other day for that matter:
They style of music
The length of the sermon
The number of prayers
The decorations of people or building
The geographical peculiarities of a church
The governance structure
It also has little or nothing to do with the demographic or sociological characteristics of a church in a particular locality. The is no mention of education levels, earning potential, political leanings, racial background, or personality types. In fact Paul goes to some length in Ch.2 to remind the Ephesians that God has acted in the Lord Jesus and by His Spirit to completely eclipse culture and ethnicity as the basis for unity. None of these things constitute the unity that the Spirit brings.
The Mindset of the Spirit make a difference in ministry and mission when it maintain a unity of peace where the wildly enthusiastic humbly and gently live with the coolly rational, where the shy and vague welcome the confident and assertive, where professors and stay at home mums rejoice together in the knowledge and experience of the grace of God, where couples and singles, overseas students and suburban families, young professionals and retirees are enabled by the power of God to engage as family.
We live worthily of the grace of God and the power he gives us by using them to work together for a patient, gentle and enduring unity. This is a union born from the gift of the presence of Jesus in us and among us is not brought about by coercion but through humble and loving compromise – the kind of compromise that God makes with us in dying in our place and taking the punishment for sin that we deserve. The Spiritual mindset doesn’t use its power to dominate others, forcing them to adopt its strategies. Instead the Mindset of the Spirit shows itself in the ability to bear with them patiently and humbly.
THe Spiritual Mindset spends the riches of God’s grace on loving others who may be unlovely or indifferent – not trying to make them like us but rather helping them to become more like Jesus.
The Mindset of the Spirit make a difference in ministry and mission when the manner of its engagement is to humbly, patiently and loving endure with each other to show the worth of the promise of grace that God has made to them and the power of his Spirit at work in them through Jesus
