United in Love, We Celebrate Our Diversity

God delights in diversity, in the complexity of faith, in the thousand ways of worshiping him and communicating with him. The syndrome of denominationalism crumbles before the power of the love and order with which he wants us to serve him as disciples. We have one identity, a single identity: Children of God. We are no longer slaves, nor masters, nor Jews, nor Gentiles, nor engineers, doctors, soothsayers or dilettantes, amateurs or professionals. Our past changed when the Lord received us into his arms; we no longer need to look back with the shame of guilt laid upon our shoulders. When you look back, look only at the cross of Christ; he died to change your past and give you a new future, a matchless gift that he offers by grace. It is the ineffable gift of salvation.

There will always be diversity, and that is wonderful. Being of one accord in the Spirit does not necessarily mean that we have to think exactly alike. Even within the same congregation. What matters is the order and priority we give to Christ, our worldview centered on God and on his Son, the Savior. Disorder can lead to a lack of restraint, and that to licentiousness. The disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit and received the same power, but none was like another. Jeremiah was the “weeping” prophet, Isaiah the most prophetic, Zechariah the most messianic; all three were prophets of God, and all three were diverse in character and in the ways they manifested the power God had given them to speak to his people.

What is essential is love. The gifts of the Spirit are tools for the advancement of the Kingdom and the gospel; they are fundamental to the life of the Church. A church in which there are no manifestations of the gifts of the Spirit is simply not a New Testament church. At the same time, God seeks men of character who embrace the gifts, but with love. It is love that endures, that will unite us all when everything is perfect, and that enduring nature is what makes it “the greatest” (1 Cor 13:13). Therefore, that love—the love that is patient and kind, that does not envy, that does not boast, that is not puffed up, that does nothing improper, that does not seek its own, that is neither provoked nor resentful, that does not rejoice in injustice but in the truth. The love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things is the only one, definitively the only one, that never—never ever—ceases to be (2 Cor 13:4–8). We must think and act in that love, for it is the love of order, the sublime and powerful love that comes from the perfect Spirit of our Lord.

God bless you!

Editorial note: If you would like to delve more deeply into this reflection, we recommend studying Pastor Roberto Miranda’s sermon entitled “A Diverse Spirituality.”