We need to be Christ-like

“And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” Ephesians 4:24

When a person who is lost is saved then they change, God calls this change a “New Man” or a “New Person”. This new person is a new nature in you put there by the Holy Spirit and it is in conflict with the old nature. Your new nature is, as God calls it “…after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” We all need to understand what this means the best that we can, and that starts with understanding God’s word. We must understand God, His thinking, and His ways. We need to understand what God desires of us in this life, and to understand that God has ordained our walk-in life. “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” Ephesians 2:10 However, understanding God has ordained our life does not excuse us from working to our spiritual goal of being Christ-like. One of those spiritual goals is to be as one in Christ and this cannot be done if Christians are looking for ways to be separate from one another. God told us through Paul in Ephesians 2:13-14 “But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ…For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us;” that is the wall that separated Jews and Gentiles was broken-down for the benefit of unity. Jesus spoke much about how Christians are to be one in Him, and this is impossible if we build walls to separate us. I have noticed that in years past many things separated Christians, Jews, Gentiles, race, gender, denomination, nationality, etc. I have known Christians not having fellowship with other Christians because we might differ on some scriptural understanding, or because they were not like them. This is called building walls of separation, but how is it exactly that we can become “one in Christ” if we built walls of separation. Now please understand that I am not talking about the churches, they are different and must be strictly protected from the worlds biblical error. But we can protect the churches without separating ourselves from each other because of doctrinal difference. While biblical understanding has a certain degree of human element to it, it also is largely God given as a measure of grace. “For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.” (Romans 12:3) God has given you the measure of grace as HE HAS CHOSEN and other as He has chosen for them. Please remember God does as He pleases “Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?”  (Romans 9:21) Therefore if you are blessed with knowledge and understanding of the scripture it is because God elected it that way. Please do not give yourself to much credit. God never said that all Christians would be equal nor that we would all be one in knowledge, understanding, or in any other way except in Christ. But this is what God did say, “Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith;”  (Romans 12:6) Each believer working with the proportion of faith that God has given to us. Allowing others work with the portion of faith that God gave to them. But we all never need to lose sight of who we are as Christians, and never allow us to build walls of separation just because we may differ in scripture. Paul wanted the church at Rome to lay aside their differences and live in peace, understanding that we are not all the same. “Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another.”  (Romans 14:19) Making peace in Christ is much better than making war among the brethren, “He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.” (1 John 2:10) “Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother's way.” (Romans 14:13)