Unity

I have had a few things burning in my heart lately that I feel need to be expressed in some medium. It will be a three part series of what the Lord has been speaking to me about in recent weeks and months and has been transforming me. My prayer is that in you reading this it will spark something inside of you that will start the same transformation in your heart and will lead you to a deeper relationship with your Savoir.

As you can probably guess from the title of this post the first part will be on unity and the power it has for us as believers and the necessity it is as a whole community of Christians wherever you are. Unity is of the utmost importance. if you are running a three legged race and one of the people you are partnered with suddenly starts to walk out of rhythm and tries to start doing their own thing it will throw the whole group out of sync. Just like it takes practice to get in sync with those you are tied to, it takes practice and perseverance to be unified with one another. Jesus knew unity would be one of the most important aspects of the whole body if it expects to function, so important, that in John 17 after he prays for the disciples, his first prayer for 'all believers' is "... that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you." That is VERY intense unity if you ask me. Jesus was one with the Father, knowing his every move and only doing what he saw the Father doing, Jesus wants the WHOLE body to be like that!

Now picture the whole body of Christ in a three legged race, running for the prize in each their own way. They are stumbling over each other and yelling at each other, telling one another their way is right and to follow them. In this way we actually end up with a lot of people who are offended at each other and it results in complete disunity. How do we unify ourselves with one another if everybody is following their own will? Paul tells us in the book of Ephesians chapter 4:3, to keep the unity of the body we must be at peace with one another. I don't know about you, but honestly this hasn't happened very well throughout church history. There are constant church splits, arguing over doctrine or theology which almost always ends in one group of people splitting from the other. Which is where we get denominations from, the root of denomination is divided nation, that is NOT unity. From the looks of it, we have not done a good job of listening to the teaching of Paul from Ephesians 4:3 or done a good job uniting ourselves as Jesus prayed.

Unity is important as you can see from above. We can't be the body Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians 12:12-26 if we are in disunity. Paul gave us a picture in that passage that one part of a physical body can't function as a different part of a body, i.e. a foot can’t be a hand and a hand can't be a foot. But imagine if we all knew who we were as part of the body of Christ and acted like what we were called to. Instead, each person wants to do their own will and not combine with the other parts to complete one task; example: a foot knows it is a foot but wants to do the job of a hand. A person may know who they are called to be but not want to move in the calling they've been given. The body must know who it is AND function in untiy. Solomon gives us a great picture of what unity looks like as human beings with the visual of a chord in Ecclesiastes 4:10-12. The law of multiplication is amazing, one of the many reasons God continues to amaze me on a daily basis. If you have one chord it can hold its own weight, but if you have two chords they can hold four times the weight, three can hold nine times the weight. Imagine the work we would get done as a full functioning unified body, going for the same goal and doing it in unison.

I hope this has inspired you to seek unity among those you are around. I wish I could include all of the verses that are written about being unified with one another. It truly shows the importance of treating each other with the same kindness and love that you show to God. If you have any more questions or would like to simply talk about how you can become more unified with those around you feel free to email me atCbergus@gmail.com. My heart is to see the body walk in true unity with one another, caring and loving each other just like Jesus and the Father did on earth and continue to do in heaven.