SPIRITUAL BONDS
1 Samuel 17 and 18
“ … Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself.”
Spiritual bonds go beyond the bonds between kindred spirits where people share similar goals and values. The bonds that those who follow after God have are special simply because God is involved and God himself facilitates and strengthens such bonds.
Peter puts it in broad terms, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
John describes us as family: “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”
Paul brings us even closer: “For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.”
The question we must face and answer is how we should respond to another countryman, another of our kind, another of our family, another part in the body of Christ. Do we, like Saul, treat each other as cheaply and poorly as our rivals, as pests who get in our way, as bodies that we can manipulate and make use of or are we grateful for our companions, our brothers and sisters, our partners in the work of God?
“This is my command: Love each other.” (John 15:17)