In the beginning of The Avengers, we find Loki longing to bring destruction to the world. He gains access to a power source found in a energy cube called the Tesseract. The director of S.H.E.I.L.D, Nick Fury, recruits a superhero team called the Avengers to help him to defeat this threat to Earth. Once this team is recruited, we find great potential with various skills and abilities. In the midst of this potential, we find that their unwillingness to work together creates much division and chaos.
Loki knows of this unwillingness, and decides to use it to his advantage. He surrenders himself to S.H.E.L.D., knowing that within their ranks he can cause their division and chaos to help him accomplish his grand plan. Loki succeeds, as their division leaves them vulnerable for an attack, leaving them wounded and weary.
Satan is very similar to Loki in that he feeds on our unwillingness to work together in the body of Christ. We have allowed people’s beliefs about political and social issues to define the sum of who they are, when they are really just a part of who they are. We deem them unChristlike, traitors, people that are not worthy of association at any cost. We consider them the enemy, when they are not the enemy.
The apostle Paul says in Ephesians 6:12, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the power of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. “ Once we see that each other is not the enemy, we become united in who our true enemy truly is. Our enemy is Satan, our accuser and the Father of Lies.
During the invasion of Loki's team, we find an agent named Phil Coulson trying to get Loki from taking out his brother Thor. In his attempt, Loki kills Phil, with Coulson trying to say to Fury that the Avengers needed something to motivate them if they had any hope of working together. Fury takes this advice to heart, using Coulson’s death to manipulate Tony Stark and Steve Rogers in working together to put aside their differences. This manipulation helps as it helps Stark, Rogers and the rest of the Avengers work in defeating the alien race Loki sends to attack Earth.
Similar to Coulson’s death, we should see Christ’s death as enough to bring us together as the body of Christ. We don’t need to be manipulated into believing it, it is true and authentic and revealed in the Scriptures. 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 says, “For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one for died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.”
Jesus died for us so that we may find life in him, living with Him in making him known among all the peoples on earth. In John 13:35, Jesus says, “ By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. “ If we don’t love “one another” in the body of Christ, the world wants no part of being apart of the community of Christ- followers. It doesn’t mean we can’t disagree with each other, but we must be united in the mission in making Jesus known among all the peoples on earth.
May the cry of our hearts be: “Lord, reign in us again. May you so increase in us, that the world sees only Jesus, and not us. As we work together, may you build your kingdom here on earth as it is on heaven and bring all people to yourself!!”
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