Mutual Faith

On Sunday night Mark started a series on the book of Romans. He plans to preach through it over the next 9 weeks. I decided to read the section from this week (Rom 1:1-17) each day to really understand it. Hopefully I'll be able to do this each week. It always amazes me how you can get something new out of the same words. The word of God [truly] is living and active (Hebrews 4:12)!

Anyway, the words of verse 12 stood out to me today:

that is, that I may be encouraged together with you
by the mutual faith both of you and me.

I love the phrase mutual faith. Those of us who have accepted that we are sinners and need Jesus' to save us have a mutual faith. That means that our faith is the same and so is our purpose and because of this we should be encouraged by one another.

I think so often in church life we get off track. We let our opinions get in the way and that often leads to a divided church. I'm not speaking of the extreme where a church splits, but where groups within the church form. Many are unspoken but you know they are there. This group of people feels this way and that groups feels that way and in the end we lose sight of our mutual faith. We let these differences become our focus.

I guess it boils down to our pride. We want to be right. We want to be in control. The truth is that none of us is in control. God is.

I've been praying 1 Corinthians 1:10 lately:

I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that all of you agree and that there be no divisions among you,
but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.

Unity in the same mind. Our purpose is the same and if we focus on that then we will be united. Let's strive to live with our mutual faith in mind rather than focusing only on getting our way!