Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Colossians 3:13,14

I’ve watched churches and individuals struggle with the unity thing for most of my adult life. And I’ve watched the grapple to build unity. If I’ve learned one thing from all this observation, it’s that if our goal is unity, we’re doomed. But if our goal is love, unity will grow out of that.

The key to true unity is to make sure that unity isn’t the goal—love is the goal. So, rather than seeking unity, we should seek love, and then we can let love be the key to unity.

Love forgives when we are wronged. Love chooses to ignore differences of opinion. Love overlooks variations in behavior. When we truly love people, differing political opinions and theological persuasions become all part of the diversity of the Living Organism we call the Body of Christ, rather than opportunity for taking offense which leads to division and strife.

This way, even if a unity of beliefs/behavior is not possible, a unity of love is. Unity is not sameness. It is love lifting us above our differences in order to pursue our common goal, the glory of God. This is crucial: God loves us unconditionally, and He calls us to love our siblings in Christ unconditionally. This kind of love never demands the casting aside of convictions or truth. In fact, it leaves that sort of thing in the hands of the Holy Spirit who is the author of unity.

Paul tells us to “be eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit” (Eph 4:3). The Holy Spirit is the giver of unity. “In one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and now we drink from that one Spirit” 1 Cor 12:13).

Charles Spurgeon said, “If you are a stranger to the Holy Spirit, you will care little for the unity he builds. Where the Spirit of God is there must be love, and if I have once known and recognized any man to be my brother in Christ Jesus, the love of Christ constraineth me no more to think of him as a stranger or foreigner, but a fellow citizen with the saints.” (The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. xii, 6).

Seek unity before love and you get neither; seek love before unity, and you discover both.