DAY 6 | Unity across differences

John 17:21

Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit

My wife celebrates Noche Buena. Christmas Eve for her family is loud, joyful, full of food, music, dancing, and presents opened at midnight. I grew up with the opposite. Quiet Christmas music, sitting by the fire, a card game or two, and a candlelight service at my grandmother’s Episcopalian church. Same holiday. Completely different expressions.

Those differences didn’t mean one was right and the other was wrong. They meant we were shaped by different experiences growing up. When we got married, we didn’t erase those differences. We learned how to hold them together, which is what unity actually means. 

Church works the same way, except the differences are often more serious than holiday traditions.

They can be political views, deeply held convictions, cultural experiences, or personal wounds. These aren’t small things, and pretending they don’t matter doesn’t create unity God intended. But Christian unity isn’t built on agreement about everything, it’s built on a shared allegiance to Jesus despite our differences. 

Paul writes, “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3).

Unity takes effort.

It means choosing love over being right, humility over winning, and peace over division. During prayer and fasting, we’re asking God not just to shape us individually, but to form us into a people who refuse to let even weighty differences pull us apart.

We are united not by sameness, but by Christ. And it is this unity that Jesus desired for us to cultivate, maintain and then ultimately, express to the world. This type of unity is almost obsolete in our current cultural climate and if I can be honest, it’s gonna take some prayer and fasting to live this out in a way that aligns with what Jesus intended. But I believe that as we actually invite Jesus into this and ask Him to help us be unified, He is faithful to do so. 

Pray for unity that goes deeper than preference, personality, or background.