Read the transcript from today's video devotional.
I love that at the beginning of this verse it starts with a "therefore." As any good English teacher will tell you, when you're reading you need to pay attention whenever you see this word, because you have to ask the question—what is the "therefore" there for? The "therefore" at the beginning of this verse is transitioning from a conversation about harmony.
Harmony: Different Parts, One Beautiful Song
Harmony is something that is so important when it comes to music. If you don't know what harmony is, I'm going to tell you right now—you want it to happen when you're listening to your favorite song being played. Because harmony means all of the parts, everything that's working to make the song go, work together in unity. There are different instruments, different tones, different notes being played. But the beauty of a song sounding the way that you hope it would comes when everything is in harmony. It's different parts of one band coming together to make something beautiful.
The writer here, Paul, is saying this should be true about the community of faith, the brothers and sisters in Christ. He's saying that there should be harmony—that all of us who come from different places with different backgrounds, who look different, with different economic standing, all of us together as one family, a part of one body, under the one headship of Christ.
Accepting One Another as Christ Accepted Us
What Paul is saying here is: therefore, because harmony is beautiful, you should accept each other just as Christ has accepted you. Now you might be wondering, why would that be essential to there being harmony? Why would accepting one another in the same way He accepted us lead to us coming together to make this beautiful song? Well, like I said a little bit earlier, you have different instruments, different notes being played, and they come together to make something magical.
We in our body of Christ existence have times where, though we are different and are called to be together in unity, we sometimes have to figure out how to get over our apprehensions—maybe even our judgments, our preconceived notions about other folks. In Christ we realize that although we grew up in different places with different backgrounds and maybe even believed different things in the way that we were raised, now that we're brothers and sisters, it's up to us to come together. How can we do that? Well, when Christ accepted us, He did so knowing that we were sinners. It says a little bit earlier in this very book, "While we were sinners, Christ died for us." In other words, He extends grace even though we don't deserve it. He works in every way to edify us so that we might be lifted up before the Father.
Fight for Harmony
What He's saying is, for us to be in harmony—for us to make this beautiful song as the body of Christ in the world—we need to accept one another in the same way that Christ has accepted us. Understanding that there are times to extend grace, to think better of other people, not fighting to find ways to bring conflict, but fighting to find ways to bring reconciliation. This is who God is calling us to be, and this is how we live as His glorification here on earth as the body of Christ. We need to fight for harmony. We want to make beautiful music as the people of God in the world, so that when the world hears our song together in harmony, they see the glory of Christ in our midst.