Unity of the Body
Psalm 133 “BEHOLD, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aarons beard: that went down to the skirts of his garments, as the dew of Hermon and the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion: for there the Lord, commanded the blessing, even life forever more.
The word of God is so powerful and is able to change anything that needs changing when we agree, obey, and walk by faith rather than sight. I believe that just as we are pleased when our children get along and walk in love and forgiveness with each other, in the same way the Lord is pleased when we walk in unity with our brothers and sisters in Christ.
It is time to humble ourselves and give away to others what God has first given us by grace. I want to please God! I believe you do too or you would not be reading this blog. We are all in need of the grace of God to walk this out in everyday life and dwell in unity. This is an area that satan will be relentless in trying to divide and conquer. We as Christians a lot of times fall right into this trap. I know I have many times and this is just pride in our own hearts. We must ask the Lord to shine His light and reveal our own blind spots, so we can repent.
If we have to have the last word and all we can think about is how the situation is affecting us that is pride. Pride is what caused satan to fall. In James 4:6 the word says that God resist the proud but gives grace to the humble. It takes humility to walk away and not have to justify yourself or to forgive when the wrong is legit and hurts.
It is not excusing a behavior or sin, it is just having faith in God to be the just judge and obeying God without question. Gossiping and repeating a matter is a sure way to divide and to not please God. Proverbs 6:16 says six things the Lord hates(strong language) and seventh is an abomination(ouch). The seventh is those who sow discord among the brethren.
Be cautious, friends, about what you repeat. If you hear something about a brother or sister in Christ and have a heart that is truly concerned for them, then get on your knees and cry out to Abba on their behalf. If one of your kids had got off track and might be heading into some destructive patterns think about how you would expect or want others to handle it. You would want people to pray for them, right? It would upset us to hear others spreading gossip about our kids! We all get off track in some areas in some seasons and need intercession from brothers and sisters in Christ. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Colossians 3:12-14 “ Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a complaint against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all these things put on charity(love), which is the bond of perfectness. This word perfectness translates as unity. This is a word that I believe we all need to take serious if we expect to see the manifestation of the promises of God! I would admonish you to evaluate your own heart and ask the Father to reveal the areas you need to grow in unity. I know that when we ask, we shall receive. I am asking and believing the Holy Spirit to release the grace on us all to quit looking for reasons to be divided, and focus on the reasons we are unified. It is in Christ that we are unified. John 15 is all about abiding in Christ and the grace that we have when we do that.
When we focus on loving God and loving others it is amazing what will start to happen. There was a season where a group of us would gather together with one another to pray. We would gather at the building I was attending church at the time, but it was usually only a couple of us that attended this church. We would invite those who were hungry to have more of Jesus. We had no agenda or motives outside of seeking the Lord with all our hearts. It was not about a specific church, denomination, ministry, person, etc. It was all about Jesus and Him being exalted. Different people prayed, spoke a word, shared in song, or reading of the word.
We saw Gods heart in and through this small group on a Saturday morning so powerfully. I felt the power, love, and anointing fall so heavily on us. I would ask the Lord why these meetings felt so different? I believe the Lord answered me. Not in a literal voice, but inside my spirit I heard this is my heart to see brothers and sisters unified in Christ! That was the key to why it was so powerful!
The unity of the Spirit in love! I am sure that there were many doctrinal differences if we would have got that far, perhaps even political differences. We never focused on or discussed those differences we only focused on our unity in Christ. It was a beautiful picture of the vision God showed me about Rebuilding the Temple ministries. It was Gods people(those in Christ) arm in arm working together as the word of God Corinthians explains everyone doing their part so the body is whole. Christ being the head and no one is more important. The Holy Spirit is the same in us all. It is a matter of how much we surrender to the Lord to use us.
Why would we be jealous, because it is not us anyway. None of us are good, without Christ in us. We are all in need of Jesus. Apart from Jesus we can do nothing. In Christ alone is our righteousness! When we look to Jesus and focus on our part and pray for our bothers and sisters in Christ I believe we will see revival and the body of Christ walking in wholeness. Lord help each of us to do our part and run our race and Holy Spirit tame our tongues to be used as an instrument of righteousness. We need your grace to walk in unity and focus on loving God and loving others, Amen!
