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A social club in Europe has a 15 year waiting period, a joining fee of $50,000, and an annual fee of $15,000. Other clubs require a high I.Q. Still others exist to give members access to celebrities. But membership in the church of Jesus Christ is open to any person who has faith in Christ and is committed to Him. The Apostle Paul writes about the body of Christ in Ephesians chapter 2. He says in the past, Jews and Gentiles were separated from each other—a split that defied unity. But since Christ came, He created the church. Paul says “now, together as one body, Christ reconciled both groups to God by means of his death on the cross, and our hostility toward each other was put to death…Now all of us can come to the Father through the same Holy Spirit because of what Christ has done for us. … Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens along with all of God’s holy people. You are members of God’s family.” Today, we celebrate the unity of Jews and Gentiles. But to our shame, some Christians are so steeped in attitudes of superiority of doctrine, class, or ethnicity, that they often ignore this vital truth unity. We fail to live out the reality that Christ’s death not only unites us with His Father but with each other.
