November 24 2025

Monday November 24

One Body, One Spirit, One Hope

Ephesians 4:4-6

4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.

Today we're looking at Ephesians 4:4-6 where the Apostle Paul is giving us the seven spiritual realities that unite us in Jesus Christ. There must be a foundational truth that makes us one. It's not just because we have decided to like each other, love one another, get along with each other that we're one so we can have one accord in the church. Our oneness is based on and because of these seven realities that are given to us at the moment we trust Jesus Christ as our personal Lord Savior.

At the moment of our salvation, we were baptized into the body of Jesus Christ. Read 1 Corinthians 12, where Paul is dealing with a church that's in tremendous division. One of their divisions is over the matter of spiritual gifts and who has the best gifts. Paul deals with this subject by taking them back to the foundational truth of the Holy Spirit and His giving the gifts of the Spirit, that are given to every member in the body.

 “For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body--whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free--and have all been made to drink into one Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:13-14). Paul uses the analogy of the human body to describe this foundational truth to help us to understand it. I only have one body. I don't have three bodies or four bodies different bodies. I don’t have the option to jump into this body today, and tomorrow I wake up and say, “I want to dress up in this next body”.

No, I only have one body God has given it to me not only duration of this life on earth, but He's given it to me for eternity. One day God will glorify even this same frail fallen body for eternity. My friend, this is a foundational truth. Just as the body is one, it has many members. I have hands, I have eyes, feet. Paul goes through those different aspects of the body and what they individually do, but it's one body they work together.

Each member of our body helps and cares for the other members. They are not jealous of each other because it is one body. This is the same spiritual reality that is ours in Christ, the moment of our salvation as it says in verse 12 and 13: “For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body”.

Now back to Ephesians 4:4 where Paul writes, “one body, one Spirit”. There's only one Holy Spirit. The same Holy Spirit that dwells lives in me, lives in you. This is what gives us unity, one body, one Spirit, working for the selfsame purpose to build up the body, the church of Jesus Christ, to exhort one another encourage one another so much more as we see the day approaching.

That takes us to the next spiritual reality. “Just as you were called in one hope of your calling.” This “one hope of your calling” has to do with the second coming of Jesus Christ. It is also called “the blessed hope” (Titus 2:13). We are looking forward to Jesus coming one day. Paul is talking about this also in Romans 8:23-25: “Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance”.

We were called to look forward to this “one hope” that one day Jesus is coming back for us! 1 John 3:2-3 promises it this way: “Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure”. What a blessed and glorious hope is ours today!!!

So, the spiritual reality is: one body, one Spirit, one hope. We have four more to look at over the next few days.

God bless!