I have heard many husbands and wives describe themselves as a team. This is an excellent description of any marriage. You see, being a team requires people to put aside their own agendas and goals for the sake of the goals and aspirations of the team. Similarly, marriages require two individual people operating as a team, a united front, in order to strengthen the marriage.
Scripture describes the importance of living in unity with others, especially in our marriages. The first place we read about unity in marriage relationships is in Genesis 2. The author of Genesis wrote about the first two people ever created who were also husband and wife: Adam and Eve. When Adam, who was first created, spent time exploring the animals God had created, it became clear that no one was like him. He was alone. Enter Eve. After Eve was created, Adam celebrated that finally, there was someone like him (verse 23). After this moment in Genesis 2, the author of Genesis commented about unity in marriage. He wrote, "This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one" (verse 24). Rather than living for themselves, this verse explains that husbands and wives are to live as one. The more we read and study Scripture, the more we read that followers of Christ are also to live unified as one (1 Corinthians 1:10-12).
When you and I partner with our spouses or loved ones and work together as one unified body of Christ, we accomplish more than we could on our own. This is because a body is meant to work together. For example, my arm and my leg are not fighting against each other. Instead, they are working together as one unified body. This unity is what we are called to in the body of Christ, especially in our marriages. So let's be people who, out of our love for our spouses, family members, and friends, work together in unity for the same purpose: glorifying Christ and demonstrating His love to the world.
Take some time to evaluate your close relationships. If you are married, sit down with your spouse and answer these questions. How are you operating as a team? Is there anything keeping you from being a united team? If so, what is it? Commit to letting go of that barrier so that you can live in a way that honors God through the way you serve each other and work together.
1 I don’t want you to forget, dear brothers and sisters, about our ancestors in the wilderness long ago. All of them were guided by a cloud that moved ahead of them, and all of them walked through the sea on dry ground. 2 In the cloud and in the sea, all of them were baptized as followers of Moses. 3 All of them ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all of them drank the same spiritual water. For they drank from the spiritual rock that traveled with them, and that rock was Christ. 5 Yet God was not pleased with most of them, and their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.
6 These things happened as a warning to us, so that we would not crave evil things as they did, 7 or worship idols as some of them did. As the Scriptures say, “The people celebrated with feasting and drinking, and they indulged in pagan revelry." 8 And we must not engage in sexual immorality as some of them did, causing 23,000 of them to die in one day.
9 Nor should we put Christ to the test, as some of them did and then died from snakebites. 10 And don’t grumble as some of them did, and then were destroyed by the angel of death. 11 These things happened to them as examples for us. They were written down to warn us who live at the end of the age.
12 If you think you are standing strong, be careful not to fall. 13 The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.
14 So, my dear friends, flee from the worship of idols. 15 You are reasonable people. Decide for yourselves if what I am saying is true. 16 When we bless the cup at the Lord’s Table, aren’t we sharing in the blood of Christ? And when we break the bread, aren’t we sharing in the body of Christ? 17 And though we are many, we all eat from one loaf of bread, showing that we are one body.
