A Church United
July 06, 2024
“Both [North and South] read the same Bible and pray to the same God and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered ~ that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.”
This is reminiscent of our situation today, at least in America. Both sides of the aisle believe each one sees all there is to see and that God is certainly on their side, which makes the other side wrong and them right. But God is up to something else and the Church would do well to discover what the Almighty's purpose is today and agree with one another to agree with Him. What do I mean by that?
We will never agree with one another on all matters political or theological. And quite frankly, there are many perspectives that are correct, but they aren't the entire picture. For example, Algebra I is "correct" and "good math." However, then there's Algebra II, trigonometry, geometry, calculus. Each one builds on the other, but to focus on one of those and think, "I know all the math there is" is foolish.
We have that happening a lot today. "I know about race relations, I know about government, I know what the Bible says about women in ministry, I know what there is to know about the Holy Spirit, etc." So if someone else doesn't know, then they must gave chosen not to know or to see the truth. That may be true, or they may be seeing part and you are seeing part and it is only together that we will see the whole. Perhaps that's why Paul instructed us to be
Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all (Ephesians 4:2-5).
It requires patience, bearing with one another, gentleness and effort to preserve the unity of the Spirit. It is like we are all to plug into one source, the Spirit, rather than having our power cords plugged into anything else like doctrine, tradition, or (dare I say it) politics. We will never agree on those things with one another but we must agree to agree with what the Spirit says to us about one another, and that is we are brothers and sisters and we must work to preserve the unity the Spirit wants us to have. However, the Spirit has to be the source of that unity and not our agreement on various topics. Help us, Lord, to preserve the unity of the Spirit!
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