Grudges

I urge Euodia and Syntyche to iron out their differences and make up. God doesn’t want his children holding grudges. (Philippians 4:2, The Message)

“God doesn’t want his children holding grudges.” Yet it is so easy to hold a grudge. Wrongs done, even among those or between those in the Body of Christ, easily submerge to become awful, dividing barriers.

As God’s people, however, we are called to something more – much more. The same God who broke down the dividing wall between Jews and Gentiles in Christ, stands in our midst. He longs for us to be unified; to have and keep our differences “ironed out.”

It is in Jesus Christ that such a reality occurs. “Christ brought us together through his death on the Cross. The Cross got us to embrace, and that was the end of the hostility” (Ephesians 2). Before the Cross, so the saying goes, we all stand on level ground. We are equally in need of mercy, and we all equally find it. Right there at the Cross of Jesus Christ the wrath of God truly was satisfied. There – and there alone – we are brought together as one.

So, “iron out [your] differences and make up.” That’s the life God desires for us. That’s how His people deal with grudges.