Church Unity
Posted: May 05, 2017
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Greig in Sao Paulo, Brazil
John the Baptist came preaching: "And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire." Luke 3:9 (NKJV)
In the year 2000, the Lord gave me some strong confirmations that I was to go minister in the country of El Salvador. I knew nothing of that country or even where it was located. Before my call to that country, the Lord put me in an interdenominational church group. That was well before I received direction from the Lord to leave my job as an engineer. I had been working as a Systems Engineer in another place in the United States, thousands of miles from my home in Phoenix, Arizona, for about a year when I received the call from God to go. So, I didn’t have time to get help from any church or organization before my mission. God’s timing or logistics did not make sense to me.
The principal personal pastor in my life is from an independent church in the state of Oregon. I was baptized by a pastor in another denomination. The Lord formed an organization for my ministry after I returned from the country of El Salvador. I am in submission to a group of elders that are members of 3 different churches. But I do not have formal help from any congregation or denomination. There are individuals in the United State helping me thru prayer and financially who are from 20 different congregations and denominations, including Catholics. In the beginning I did not understand what the Lord was doing with me. I wanted to stay in one church. I thought that it would be much easier. I couldn’t understand why He wouldn’t let me do things in the ‘normal’ fashion. But I understand more and more what the Lord was doing. I believe that the Lord is doing the same with many people in the church now to help them prepare a church to walk in unity.
The Lord sent me to El Salvador in November 1, 2000 with a friend who was a brand new Christian. I had no idea why I was going but was obedient to go to this city that the Lord miraculously showed me on a map. For 3 days I was led by the Spirit of God from place to place and person to person in this city. After 3 days, on a crowded old bus, the Lord spoke to me in an almost audible voice. "I have called you here to unify My body." It was an amazing revelation. Finally I knew what my work was to be there. The Lord told me to return to the US after 10 days in El Salvador in my first trip and to return the first week of March 2001. When I got home, I began to ponder and study what God says about unity of His body.
What is the strong desire of the Lord?
In John 17:11, Our Lord Jesus prayed to His Father: 11 "Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are. John 17:11 (NKJV)
21 "that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. John 17:21 (NKJV)
23 "I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me. John 17:23 (NKJV)
26 "And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them." John 17:26 (NKJV)
What are the 2 Great Commandments?
34 But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, 36 "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?" 37 Jesus said to him, "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 "This is the first and great commandment. 39 "And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.‘ 40 "On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets." Matt 22:34-40 (NKJV)
How do we know that we are Disciples of Christ?
34 "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 "By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." John 13:34-35 (NKJV)
What is the Evidence that you Love God?
20 If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? 21 And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also. 1 John 4:20-21 (NKJV) The bible says that without love, we are nothing.
The Father and I are One. If we connect all the scriptures, we should arrive at a point where we honestly say: “If I am a true disciple of Christ, my brother and I are one”.
You don’t need an evangelist or prophet to come to you or a miraculous sign to get the revelation that unity is the plan of God. It is obvious in His Word. Unity with God and our brothers is priority number 1 and number 2. It is for this reason that we are here on the earth, to learn how to be one.
The Lord sent me to El Salvador to get familiar with the place in November 200. He showed me clearly to come back again in March. I thought this seemed crazy, since I had quit my job. On January 13, 2001, El Salvador experience an enormous earthquake that destroyed 10’s of thousands of homes and killed thousands of people. A similar quake occurred again, in a different region, in February 13, 2001. (I’m sure this helped reinforce to the superstitious that 13 is an unlucky number).
Before the earthquakes, I saw a church totally divided. The Protestants and the Catholics were almost at war. I returned to El Salvador 4 months later to witness the Catholics and Protestants making pacts with each other to stand together in the Lord’s work ministering to the hurting people.
There is more than multiplication in unity.
7 You will chase your enemies, and they shall fall by the sword before you. 8 Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight; your enemies shall fall by the sword before you. Lev 26:7,8 (NKJV)
From that scripture you can calculate that 5 brings a 20 fold increase in force. 100 produces a 100 fold increase in force. Only an ex engineer would probably calculate this, but it’s obvious to me that the increase of power in unity is logarithmic!
To stay separate is a luxury. When any family, group of people, region or nation is in crisis, it comes together. Because we all know that we need each other to confront whatever enemy. It is inherent in each of us to know that there is strength in unity. But, in good and safe times, we think we can afford to be prideful, stay separate, and build our stand alone kingdoms.
The church, of all groups of people, should know better. Anytime in history, when another group was determined to come and destroy the Christians, the church in that region came together, regardless of race, creed or denomination. But we, of all people, should know that the enemy we can’t see is worse than whatever enemy we can see, and is ever present, waiting to divide then destroy.
Division is a luxury that exists only when we forget our primary mandates and become prideful, and start thinking that we can stand alone. Why do we have to be humbled before we will work together as one?
Remember that babies die easily. New Christians are rapidly weakened and die in an atmosphere of division. There is a mountain of souls destroyed by the lack of unity.
A group of persons that remain separated from the rest of the church is one of the characteristics of a cult. A spirit of division is the seed that generates cults. There are more than enough cults already.
The devil and our flesh will give us a thousand reasons why it is better to stay separated. If we look long enough, and not be concerned with context, we can encounter enough places in the Bible that seem to help us justify staying separate. But in context, unity with the Lord is priority number one and unity with other brother is priority number 2. Really, if we have unity with the Lord we will have it with each other.
49 "Master," said John, "we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we tried to stop him, because he is not one of us." 50 "Do not stop him," Jesus said, "for whoever is not against you is for you." Luke 9:49-50 (NIV)
Obedience to the voice of the Holy Spirit is more important than the obedience to a consensus. Only obedience to the leading of the Holy Spirit will make the church fruitful. The thinking of the Holy Spirit who is the mind of Christ in action is more important than our opinion.
Our capacity to create unity is directly relative with our capacity become a servant. Jesus will declare to His chosen, ‘well done good and faithful servant’. Don’t commit the error of thinking that He will say “well done” if we have not been a faithful servant, and much less will he call us servants if we have not served.
The Lord will return to carry a church without spot or wrinkle. A group separated from others in the church is a big wrinkle.
Psalms 133 says that there is an extra blessing in unity.
1 Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! Psalms 133:1 (NKJV)
There is power for persons walking in unity.
6 And the LORD said, "Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. 7 "Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech." 8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. Gen 11:6-8 (NKJV)
When I was preparing to leave El Salvador, the local leaders told me that they were going to have the first multi-church gathering in the city plaza. A month after I left that country, they had the rally. They experienced healing miracles that had not been seen before in that city. It was amazing. They sent me videos of the event.
But sadly, only about a year later, the church in that city that had unified began to divide again. And, of course the miracles, that were getting the attention of the unsaved, faded away.
The enemy knows that unity of the church is the thing most dangerous for his kingdom. He is always trying to cause division:
1. In the mind of the individual 2. family 3. community (friends) 4. local church 5. and between congregations.
Unity in the body of Christ is very fundamental, that without it, it is impossible for us to have the potential to do the work of the Lord that He has delegated to us.
A profound and true unity in Christ, enables the church to go to a level in which that allows us to transform nations.
To reach the pinnacle of the glory that God has reserved for his church in this final time will require unity of the faith.
We are part of the generation of the last days, to receive the promise of God to obtain the unity of the faith and to arrive at the stature of Christ that our ancestors never obtained.
When we think in terms of the Kingdom of God, we change the way in which we look at things. It is time to think less in terms of leading our churches and begin to think in terms of leading the cities where we live.
Unity is not the result of revival. When unity arrives, the revival has a place to stay. When we create unity, we create the structure that God requires to send revival.
If the pastors and other leaders of the church are in agreement and the church is one, the revival will be fruitful and the harvest will be great.
I will end with an exhortation from the apostle Paul.
5 Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another, according to Christ Jesus, 6 that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 15:5-6 (NKJV)
