Disunity

 When our kids were young, there were always a few annual Penner family get-togethers.  The kids all had cousins close to their own ages, and they looked forward to these times.  I did too, except for one thing:  very often vociferous "discussions" would erupt, usually about politics or some disagreement about biblical understanding.  No one listened to anyone else ever; they were too busy loudly voicing their own opinions, and no one came away any the wiser ever, but it happened over and over again.  No one ever became actually irate and no one left hating anyone.  It just seemed to be a ritual and I found it unpleasant.

God desires our unity.  Psalm 133:1 says, "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren (and of course sistern) to dwell together in unity."  Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, "I do not pray for these (disciples) alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word (that's us); that they all may be one , as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they may be one in Us..." (John 17:20-21).

Those gathered in the upper room waiting for the Holy Spirit "continued in one accord in prayer and supplication" (Acts 1:14).  When the day of Pentecost came, they were still gathered "with one accord in one place" (Acts 2:1).  After that powerful day, the believers "continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, ate their bread with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people.  And the Lord added daily those who were being saved" (Acts 2:46-47).  

After a lame man was healed in the name of Jesus, and the priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees arrested Peter and John, threatening them and commanding them not to speak or preach in the name of Jesus, these two returned to the others and reported what had just happened.  "So when they heard that, they raised their voice to God with one accord..."  After they prayed, "the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness.  Now the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul." (See Acts 4:1-32.)  No wonder the church was multiplying every day, when "through the hands of the apostles, many signs and wonders were done among the people.  And they were all with one accord in Solomon's porch.  Yet none of the rest dared join them, but the people esteemed them highly.  And believers were increasingly added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women, so that they brought the sick out into the streets and laid them on beds and couches, that at least the shadow of Peter passing by might fall on some of them.  Also a multitude gathered from the surrounding cities to Jerusalem, bringing sick people and those who were tormented by unclean spirits, and they were all healed" (Acts 5:12-16).  What an amazing time it must have been!  I have no doubt that disunity would have killed the whole movement in no time.

Today, we who are called the family of God are busy barking at each other about vaccinations.  On one side, we have many self-righteously shaking their heads at the "anti-vaxxers", and on the other hand we have many shaking their heads at the " blind and uninformed" masses.  And many do much more than just shake their heads.  They become rude and verbally punitive.  Families are separated by those who refuse to get anywhere near those who don't agree on this, not even, in some cases, allowing parents, grandparents, sisters, friends or whoever to come visit if they are, or are not, vaccinated.

It's not too hard to understand why we aren't walking in the power and anointing of the early church when we let the fear of a virus interfere with the unity that Jesus prayed for.  Can we not trust in God's protection?  Jesus reached out and touched an "untouchable" leper, and instead of the leprosy contaminating Jesus, the leprosy had to go.  (See Matthew 8:1-3.) Jesus is living inside every one of us believers by His Spirit.  Let us also reach out in love to those around us who need us, who are hurting, whether we agree with them on this and all other issues or not.  And let us not allow fear, or pride, or arrogance, or a belief that we know better that these others keep us from being the hands and feet and eyes and voice of Jesus, expressing His love and compassion.

Second Corinthians 2:15 calls us the "fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing."  Many of us are not dispensing this fragrance, but a stink caused by our outrage at what we may see as pigheadedness or ignorance.  

Ephesians 4:29 is a verse we have visited before in these discussions..."Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers."  Let's just finish the chapter..."And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.  Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice.  And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you."

My brothers and sisters in Jesus, please let us join in unity in walking out the Great Commission of Jesus (Matthew 28: 19-20 and Mark 16:15-18) and showing forth His love and grace.  Let us be more afraid that somebody will go to hell because we haven't told them of God's wonderful plan of salvation than that they may be a source of contamination or that they may be shedding a spike protein.

Choose

 After my father-in-law passed on, we found journals he had kept.  Even though there had to have been truly miserable days, he ended each day's record with this phrase:  "It was a good day."

Yesterday was my late husband's birthday and these anniversaries of important days are opportunities to be reminded of grief and loss, to have "blue" days and feel sorry for ourselves.  But yesterday was a lovely day with lots of sunshine, lovely temperatures, contact with good people, lots of blessings.  I was reminded of previous birthdays and was thankful for so many good years together.

It is always our choice:  do we give in to natural attitudes of sadness and self-pity, or do we choose to see our blessings and walk in gratitude?

When Satan came to Adam and Eve to tempt them, he certainly did not point out that there were hundreds of trees they were free to eat from.  He had to draw their focus to the one and only tree that was forbidden.  They were in paradise, where everything was perfect but they allowed themselves to be led to believe that they were missing out on something.  If they had answered the talking snake with glowing reports of how wonderful their life was, there would have been no giving in to the temptation.

My small group co-teacher had a lesson not long ago on Romans 1 where she pointed out that the slide into "all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; (being) full of envy, murder, strife, deceit...gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, proud, boastful, inventors of evil things, and disobedient toward parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, calloused and unmerciful..." (verses29-31) all started with not glorifying God nor giving thanks to Him (verse 21).  

Satan hates it when we praise God.  He wanted the position of being on God's throne.  His boast was "I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit also on the mount of the congregation in the recesses of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High" (Isaiah 14:13, 14).  He really wanted even Jesus to worship him (Matthew 4:8,9).  

So when we glorify and praise God for all the blessings we do have, we rub the devil's nose in his own messes.  Psalm 8:2:  "Out of the mouths of babes and nursing infants You have ordained strength because of Your enemies, to silence the enemy and the avenger."  When Jesus quoted part of this verse, He changed the words, not to misquote nor because He didn't remember how it was written, but in order to add commentary.  He said, "Out of the mouths of children and infants You have perfected praise" (Matthew 21:16).  So, in combining the two verses, we can see that praise is connected to our strength and thereby we can silence the enemy and the avenger!  How worthwhile then to choose praise!  Nehemiah said, "The joy of the Lord is your strength."  (8:10)

Some of my new favourite verses are Psalm 92:1, 2:  "It is good to give thanks to the Lord, and to sing praises unto Your name, O Most High; to declare forth Your lovingkindness in the morning and Your faithfulness in the night..."

So let's choose to praise and be thankful, in order to confound the devil and silence his voice, to protect ourselves from sliding into ungodliness, and to strengthen ourselves.  Of course, at the same time, we are pleasing God and that is always a good thing.