We Are One

Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

My name is Xochitl Dixon. Today in We Are One, I'm sharing a story that God used to teach me how to love my neighbors as I love myself. In a small farming community, news travels fast. Several years after the bank sold the farm David's family had owned for decades, he learned the property would be available for sale. After much sacrifice and saving, David arrived at the auction and joined a crowd of nearly 200 local farmers. Would David's meager bid be enough? He placed the first bid, taking deep breaths as the auctioneer called for hire bids.

The crowd remained silent until they heard the slam of the gavel. The fellow farmers placed the needs of David and his family above their own financial advancement. This story about the farmer's sacrificial act of kindness demonstrates the way the Apostle Paul urges followers of Christ to live. Paul warns us not to conform to the pattern of this world by placing our selfish desires before the needs of others and scrambling for self-preservation. Instead, we can trust God to meet our needs as we serve others. As the Holy Spirit renews our minds, we can respond to situations with God-honoring love and motives. Placing others first can help us avoid thinking too highly of ourselves as God reminds us that we're a part of something bigger, the church. The Holy Spirit helps believers understand and obey the Scriptures. He empowers us to give selflessly and love generously so we can thrive together as one.

Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Romans chapter 12, verses 1 to 5. Therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, His good, pleasing, and perfect will. For by the grace given me, I say to every one of you, do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, so many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. Let's pray. Father God, thanks for reminding us to see past our personal space. Please rid us of our selfishness so we can love selflessly and stand as one with our brothers and sisters in Christ. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.