Binding Grace

While abiding grace is the presence of Christ in us, binding grace is the blessing of our unity with Him and with His children.  Otis Skilling’s “We Are One in the Bond of Love” and Bob Gillman’s “Bind Us Together” are musical representations of this aspect of grace.  It is the wonderful grace of God that can take the rich the poor, the professional and the laborer, the black and the white and have them all join hands in harmony and sing these songs.  It is the moving of God’s grace that breaks down the barriers of culture, education, station or income and make everyone see their unity in Christ.

Sadly this is a manifestation of grace that is often lacking in churches.  People gather on Sunday morning and sing together and then depart and see each other no more until the next Sunday.  The desired oneness in Christ is left in the pew.  Those seeking true fellowship and joy in the family of God can begin to feel pretty lonely in such an environment.  God created us to be in union and communion with other believers.  He calls us to “familyhood” in Him.  He calls the Church collectively His bride and we are each part of being that bride but we are not the bride in and of ourselves.  The unity of Sunday morning is not to pass away on Monday morning.  We are still to see ourselves as one in Him and one with each other.

Peter comments at the end of his second letter that we are to grow in grace.  It means that all the graces that God has in store for us need to be nurtured just as our bodies need to be nurtured to grow physically.  Christ has implanted binding grace into the very nature of His Church body.  God has implanted a gene for hair on our head in the DNA of our body, but He expects us to maintain our hair.  He has implanted a gene for teeth in our mouth in the DNA of our body, but he expects us to maintain our teeth.  He has implanted a gene for true unity and fellowship in the DNA of our new birth, but He expects us to maintain it so that it grows properly for His glory. 

In John 17 Jesus gave His high priestly prayer for the Church. He prayed that we would be one as He and the Father are one.  He prayed that the world we see the oneness of God in the oneness of His Church.  That is binding grace and we need to grow in it for the joy of our Christian lives and the beauty of our testimony.  The best song ever written on this topic came from a pastor of a small church in rural England, “Blest Be the Tie that Binds”.

Blest be the tie that binds, our hearts in Christian love,

The fellowship of kindred minds, is like to that above.

We share our mutual woes, our mutual burdens bear

And often for each other flows the sympathizing tear.

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