I am not addressing babes in Christ in this teaching. Rather, I am addressing the mature leaders in the Body of Christ. When Yeshua (Jesus) ascended, “He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:11–12).[1] Yeshua left these ministries here on earth with His anointing. The mantle of Christ as Immanuel, “God with us,” was never to leave the earth (Matthew 1:23). Yeshua left that mantle of His presence with us in these mature ministries for the equipping of the saints.
Too often we get lost in our individual churches and forget that God left these ministries to the Body of Christ. At the beginning of chapter 4 in Ephesians, Paul said, “Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord” (Ephesians 4:1). As leaders we are prisoners of the Lord in the anointing that God has given us in these gift ministries; we are to serve His purpose. Paul is imploring us, “Walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love” (Ephesians 4:1–2). In the Greek it says, “Put up with each other.” Tolerance and forbearance sound so wonderful, but the Holy Spirit is saying, “Would you please try to put up with each other?” We must show patience to one another in love.
God is doing something important in the leaders because the sheep will follow the leaders. If there are problems in the Church, it starts with us. We take that responsibility, knowing that as teachers we will incur a stricter judgment (James 3:1). God is holding us responsible for the condition of the global Body of Christ. That is what Paul is talking about. We are to walk in a manner worthy of this calling with all humility, gentleness, and patience, showing forbearance to one another in love. So by the Holy Spirit we proclaim a tremendous outpouring of love for each other in all our diversity.
The Holy Spirit is trying to knit us together on another level that is no longer optional. We are to be diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Ephesians 4:3). There must be a oneness among us that gets us out of the division, mistrust, and separation. We all have different gifts, different visions, and different organizations. I am not trying to change that, but we must function together in a oneness. We are not authorities over individual churches. We are authorities over the Body of Christ, and we have a purpose far beyond what we have seen yet. God open our eyes to this.
Do not let our differences be a source of division; rather believe in oneness. If we commit our hearts to this oneness of the Spirit, we will grow up into a oneness of faith and come into a perfect knowledge of the Son of God (Ephesians 4:13). So we open our hearts to love one another, not just in our individual churches, but in the Body of Christ. Yeshua prayed, “That they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me” (John 17:21). The world will believe when they see this oneness.
[1] All Scripture references are from the New American Standard Bible 1995 (NASB1995).