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What Price Unity?

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How well do you get along with others? How well do they get along with you? Even more importantly, when you aren’t getting along with someone what do you do about it? Avoid the person? Gossip about them? Spread dissension? If you keep your thoughts to yourself but continue to hold something against someone, don’t think you are doing the right thing by keeping quiet. Jesus wants you to resolve your issue. In fact, he DEEPLY DESIRES that you love your brother.

Believers Hating Other Believers?

I have been thinking about this a lot lately because I have heard other believers talk about hating other believers. I have seen dissension without repentance and restoration and I have even seen believers taking other believers to court, despite clear commands in Scripture not to. (See I Cor. 6:1-11). Echoes of Rodney King echo in my head: “Why can’t we all get along?”  Well, in the Christian community, why can’t we?

Remember Who We Are

First of all, let’s be honest and admit that we are broken. We don’t love everyone and we don’t even like everyone. Second, it’s hard to get along at times with some people. Some are “prickly” and not real likeable. Even the Apostle Paul advised in Romans that as much as it lies in you, be at peace with all men. The caveat seems to indicate that sometimes we will just not be able to be at peace with some people.

Jesus Prayed for Our Oneness

But here is what bothers me. It’s the night Jesus is to be arrested. His death is imminent and He knows it. He is praying His heart out! And what does He pray for future believers like you and me? He prays that we would be one. John 17: 20-23 says:

“20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.”

Notice the underlined words-so that. So that what?  That the world would know who He is!! See why this is so important? Our dissension and bad feelings are a blot on our testimony to a watching world. Why give Satan this foothold? What could someone possibly have done to you that is so bad it is worth giving unbelievers one more reason to NOT believe? If you are a parent of more than one child you know how grievous it is to your heart when your children do not get along? How much more then is it grieving the heart of your Lord and Savior when you are not getting along with your siblings in Christ? Have you stopped to consider that it does in fact grieve the Father?

Repairing Rifts

So then, what can you do about the rift between you and someone else? First of all, check your own heart. Are you perfect? How annoying can you be at times? (If you need help answering this just ask a spouse, child or honest friend). Have you tried to reconcile? Have you followed the pattern in Matthew 18 of taking someone else with you if you can’t work it out between the two of you? How ready are you to accept your part of the difficulty? Or even more, how willing are you to cover this with a blanket of love for the sake of unity? How willing are you to lay this down for the sake of the gospel–because remember we are called to unity SO THAT the world may believe.

Finally, let me suggest one more thing: remind yourself that you are a great sinner and God loves you dearly. But if your “enemy” is a believer, God loves that person just as much as He loves you. Picture yourself naming the other person’s faults and expressing your disdain for them in front of your Master. Beloved one, you are IN CHRIST and He is in you. That can only mean that loving the brethren is an absolute possibility. You really have no excuse. “And they’ll know we are Christians by our love.”

By Holly Carr 

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