on Unity

"Behold, how good and how pleasant it is For brothers to dwell together in unity!"(psalm 133:1). I have been longing lately to see unity restored in the Body so much these last few months I figured I needed to write about it. It means so much to me as a believer (as it should us all) that I find myself groaning for it. I have been orphaned twice in my life, once at birth (I was blessed enough to be adopted) and then again in my early twenties when my folks both went to be with YHWH. I only preface with that to drive home the point that the Body of Christ which is the church IS my family. God has blessed me with a real life view of what it means to be an “adopted son” (rom 8:15) in the Lord.

I was talking with a friend today about how when Jesus was speaking on the sabbath in matt 12, and His disciples came to Him and said that His mother and brothers were outside wishing to speak with Him, He replied “who is my mother and who are my brothers?... For whoever does the will of my Father who is in heaven, he is my brother and sister and mother.” We are talking about Mary here...the woman who immaculately conceived the Son of God (who is God), and He makes it a point to let His disciples know that we who believe ARE family and we are called to be unified in this manner, no if and or buts! We are part of an imperishable kingdom and “any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste”(matt 12:25). I tried a search of how many “denominations” there are in the world today and it turned up anywhere from 34,000 to 40,000!!! Makes me want to puke!! The fact that the very word denomination literally means division aught to say something about the state of things.

So what is the answer? Well, I don't have any clue how to get “churchianity” to stand on the Rock, but I do know that everything we do as believers starts right in our own hearts. I think of the modern church today as a similar form of the ancient Israelite form of temple worship. I know it had to have been a good party. The priests come out all decked out in their robes and shiny ephods and a mighty worship team, or chorus per se, and THEY gave the sacrifice for the body. THEY gave the atonement while the people sat back and joyfully shouted. There was a BBQ (animal sacrifice), reading from the Law and quite a show I am sure. Kind of an outward/inward flow of worship.

Now things are a little different, when our Lord nailed our sins to the cross everything changed. Instead of going to the temple in Jerusalem, our bodies became the Temple of the Holy Spirit (1 cor 6:19) and WE became a kingdom of priests (rev 1:6). We now “speak to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody WITH YOUR HEART to the Lord; always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even to the Father; and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.” (eph 5:19) Worship took a 180 and flows now from the inside/outside. worship no longer is merely entertainment, but a gathering of Holy Spirit temples coming together to devote ourselves to the teaching of YHWH while breaking bread to remember the body and blood of the Lord (acts 2:42). We are to be unified in the devotion to God first and His family which is the church. We are to “walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being DILIGENT to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all. But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift.” (eph 4:1-7)

We are shown again in col 3:12-17 “as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.”

Christ is the head of the church....period. At some point religion let the leaven of the Pharisees in which is hypocrisy and we started ranking ourselves in righteousness when none of us are worthy(rom 3:23), and that is made abundantly clear in my life daily. We make mistakes all the time and repent and turn, learning loving and moving on as a unified Body of mercy. We love each other and “remember no wrong suffering”(1 cor 13:5) because we are unified in the fact we all make mistakes. “Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus” (phil 2:1-5)

We are to become like Christ and empty ourselves out, not pretending that there is a “justice league” of super christians that are more righteous than others. A friend reminded me of that today when Jesus refers to the churches in Revelation, that the ones who thought they were doing the best were in actuality doing the worst. The ones who thought that they were doing the worst because of their poverty and affliction were rich. we are to “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.” (eph 4:31). We have to be VERY careful to not let the spirit of the accuser into our lives. We must have the spirit as the apostles did in the upper room. When jesus said “tonight one of you will betray me” the apostles replied, “is it I?” They did not immediately start pointing fingers saying “its definitely peter, or James!!” No, they realized that we are all capable of doing things to Jesus even though we don't even want to. We have no reason to accuse each other of anything, the devil is more than enough, as a matter of fact that is his nature. “”Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night.” (rev 12:10) He spends day and night accusing us, so must constantly be in check when we accuse each other. Christ made us “alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.” Nailed it to the cross!!!!! I LOVE IT!!!! PRAISE GOD!!! Our sins are forgiven, PERIOD!!! No room for opinions, or worldly thinking. If that was the case, Paul could have never been an apostle. If it were today, religion would be saying, “well, we have to see if you don't kill any christians for a while first”, and stood as his judge. May it never be!!! They would have told peter “well, you denied Jesus a few times, as we all read, so we have to see if you are over that first”. AHHHH!!!! If we belong to the Lord we are vessels of MERCY!!! Only in the case of un-repentance is dis-fellowship an option, other than that we all agree, ITS NAILED TO THE CROSS!!! BY HIS STRIPES WE WERE HEALED!!!!! WOOOOOOOO HOOOOO!!!!! Dont forget it, write it down, tie a string around your finger if you have to, remember that the devil does enough accusing for all of the brethren and uses it to take unity from us. More forgiveness can be found in a bar in todays day and age than in the church and it HAS TO STOP!!!! They will know we are christians because of our LOVE FOR ONE ANOTHER!!! We are at war, and if we want to be overcomers and do things like pray for miracles we have to be UNIFIED. Even if its a hard pill to swallow sometimes, its not about us, but about HIM. HIS way not our way. If anyone is born of the water and Spirit and baptized in the name of Jesus, calling on His name they are a part of the Body. Like paul says “who are you to judge the servant of another? To His own master he stands or falls; and he WILL stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand” (rom 14:4).

We are to be fruit inspectors in the church (1 cor 5:12), but it is to keep the body healthy, and other than the context of un-repentance, we deal with sin promptly, forgive and move on. How can we even dream of throwing anything on the alter and expect an answer if we have problems with one another, don't forgive and don't reconcile it to Him? “”Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering.” (matt 5:23-24) This scripture is really speaking to me in my own life right now, Lord give me the strength.

Be patient with one another, church don't act as accusers of each other, but put on love fighting to stimulate one another to love and good deeds (Heb 10:24). Like James says “Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord The farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it, until it gets the early and late rains. You too be patient; strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. Do not complain, brethren, against one another, so that you yourselves may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing right at the door.” (Jas 5:7-9). We are not capable of being God and acting as if we are the authority on heart conditions. We pray for each other, we love each other, we bear one anothers burdens and think of others as more important than ourselves. We are patient and trust in God to bring rain in His timing. That is who we are as the body, that is unity, it the spirit of love not the spirit of the accuser we are to have. The good news of the gospel is that God forgives even when we forget and put our own opinions of each other over His opinion of us. We all have the tendency of being like Jonah from time to time. Upset when God forgives, and for some reason feeling as if we have the right to believe that God nailed ALL sin to the cross to those who repent and believe in Him. I love the fact that God uses something as simple as a plant to illustrate “So the LORD God appointed a plant and it grew up over Jonah to be a shade over his head to deliver him from his discomfort. And Jonah was extremely happy about the plant. But God appointed a worm when dawn came the next day and it attacked the plant and it withered. When the sun came up God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah's head so that he became faint and begged with all his soul to die, saying, “Death is better to me than life.“ Then God said to Jonah, “Do you have good reason to be angry about the plant?“ And he said, “I have good reason to be angry, even to death.“ Then the LORD said, “You had compassion on the plant for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight. “Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?“

God knows that we have a hard time with forgiveness sometimes, but He IS love. We cant even comprehend it without Him, its impossible. But knowing Him we just forgive and trust in Him to make each other stand. un-forgiveness is a great enemy that is not to be taken lightly. GOD hands us over to the torturers! Read matt 28:21-35 if you have forgotten. This is in the context of Brothers, and it really puts the fear of God in me. None of us are immune to this parable, it is something that all of us as believers need to read OFTEN to remember that God isnt fooling around when it comes to forgiveness. It must be FROM THE HEART.

Its time for the body of Christ to be who we are called to be. I will be the first so admit that I have been wrong, and I have done many things in my life that have caused disunity, but that is the beauty of the Gospel of Jesus christ. We live our lives from day to day and we are given a daily opportunity to repent, forgive and feel the love pour in, being better people than we were yesterday. like jonathan swift said “A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying...that he is wiser today than yesterday.”

Lets be the people we are called to be, lets take the light yoke that is promised through Jesus Christ and not wasting our time letting the spirit of the accuser have any hold in us any longer. we cannot be afraid to admit when we are wrong, thinking that it somehow lessens our spiritual credibility. That is such a prideful stance that all of us have been guilty of, and it is not credible. We all fall ridiculously short of the Glory of God and its only HIM in us that justifies us and it is a debt to sin that was PAID IN FULL. God is perfecting us daily, and we will spend our whole lives fighting daily to die to ourselves and the bad news is that none of us will obtain it till this race is over(1 john 3:2) the good news is that if we but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.” So lets walk in the light, and have some fellowship letting that precious blood wash us clean. No more plank eye, please. I admit I am a sinner, but I also confess that Jesus Christ IS God and walked in the flesh, conquering ALL sin on my behalf, and my election is true. Dont forget, He LOVES YOU TOO!!!!

Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus Christ.