Growing in Unity

 

Do you operate independently of Truth and Love and show little growth? It affects unity in the body of Christ.

Paul wrote to the Ephesian Christians to encourage them to continue in their unity and love for each other. With Ephesians 4:15-16, Paul reminded them how they can be unified. He told them God causes unity. Yet believers must live out what God puts in them to be unified. So, how did Paul say believers could achieve unity? Speak the truth. Be faithful to your covenant within the body to each believer. Grow up into a mature Christian, into Christlikeness.

Note: We manufacture none of these. The agape love Paul wrote has its source in God. As God loves us—sacrificially -we are to love other believers. Truth originates with God, too. It permeates the Bible from Genesis to Revelations and continues throughout eternity. Truth teaches and guides us as we grow, act on it, and teach others.

Why do we need to live in unity? First, to be part of the body of Christ. If you are the leg but do not work as a leg should, you cripple the whole body. If, however, you, the leg, get your instructions/motivation/ability from God, then you work in a way that benefits the whole body.

Unity is not an ideological fantasy. Unity occurs because of the agape love that originates with God. Before we believed in Jesus and He saved us, we had philia love, but we sometimes overrode that love with selfishness. Since Jesus saved us, we can love sacrificially. God gives us His power to overlook our self-interests and love sacrificially always; that’s agape love. To use another phrase, loving other believers sacrificially is covenant faithfulness. We have God’s interests—the best interests—of other people in mind. Others before self; the whole before themselves; these create unity.

Unity, Paul said, also occurs when believers, as the body of Christ (a Christ-unified whole) seek, in attaining or maintaining unity, to edify individual or groups of believers within itself. The growth can occur in many things that align with God, have their source from God, and cause unity within the body of Christ. Some of these things are Christian wisdom, purity, piety, holiness, joy, and peace. This edification is both organic (learning from God’s word in personal time with Him) and relational (learning through another Christian like a pastor, teacher, deacon, and friend).

None of these three—truth, agape love, or Christian growth—comes from oneself. Each of them has its source solely in God. Again, a believer cannot absorb any of these things just by being a believer. God provides these things, with or without another believer’s intercession. God expects each believer to function as a member of Christ's body. Without operating/living actively as part of the body, we are not beneficial to the rest of the body, and we do not grow in our faith and unity with the body, and the gifts the Spirit gives us stay merely seeds, useful to no one.

Truth, love, and growth must be lived out. God’s truths and love within us should compel us to seek Him more, tell other people about Jesus, and strengthen the body of Christ, the local and universal Church. Using the gifts the Spirit put into us, exercises and grows them; they, then, grow within us. Sharing God’s truths, His agape love, and what He has taught us as we have individually grown closer to Him and become more like Christ by living them out, is what helps grow the church to be unified.

God’s gifts plus Christian action grow the believer and the body of Christ, who is the Head, so the body matures into the image of Jesus Christ. Each believer is supposed to embody these grace gifts from God for a purpose. That purpose is not to hoard them for themselves. The purpose is to unite all believers into one likeness, Jesus. When we are like Jesus, we love sacrificially (covenantal faithful) and desire that all people know the truths of God, mature into Jesus’ likeness, and unify into the body of Christ, thereby projecting Him to the world.

Today, what aspect of your Christianity does not show your uniting with the body of Christ, Jesus? Are you always living out and teaching God’s truths? Do you love sacrificially? Are you growing in your relationship with God, so that your life shows Christ’s likeness? God gives each of these to us as grace gifts. Pray to God asking for forgiveness for not living in His power to share His truth, love sacrificially, and build up other believers. Ask God to help you stay focused on Him and use the power He gives to be unified in the body of Christ with Jesus as your Head.

Run to the Father

https://youtu.be/HTHS4W1bPj8?si=NNgHMlMLbyl5cVJ5

Thoughts on Prayer and Its Necessity

 

The Bible is filled with hundreds of passages on prayer. Because communication is so important for any relationship and people were created for relationship, prayer is integral to our being and to being in a relationship with God. 

Without daily prayer, we are like a plant that has no source of nutrients. We wither, turn inwards on ourselves, die, and become dust tossed about by every wind.

Prayer is the source of our nutrients, a channel of food, that grows us upward in our relationship with God, inward in our estimation of ourselves, and outward in our relationship with other people. 

Without relationship with God grown through prayer, we gain no guidance in our purpose of being alive. 

Our redemption by Jesus comes from His relationship with the Father and His sacrifice to have relationship with us. 

Our hearing God’s voice and being saved comes because of prayer and through our prayer of acceptance and confession of sins.

If we don’t pray, we cut off that which Jesus gave His life for—relationship with Him, and we negate the meaning and method of our salvation. Then we die a martyr to this world and have an eternal destiny without God.

Prayer is vital to our lives as Christians.

Fruit or Fire

 

“He cuts off every branch in Me that bears no fruit, and every branch that does bear fruit, He prunes to make it even more fruitful.” John 15:2

This metaphor of pruning branches that Jesus used has an overarching idea most people would understand. God removes unfruitful people. He grows fruitful people so they will become more fruitful. God enables fruitful people to advance His purposes more.

To understand this verse better, we must understand why a fruit farmer would cut tree branches. Jesus plainly explained the first reason. Farmers cut off dead branches from a tree to cause healthy growth of the rest of the tree. Without cutting off the dead branch, the tree will continue to send nutrients toward the dead branch instead of extending its nutrients to parts of the tree that will grow. Cutting off dead branches leads to more growth in other parts of the tree. This illustrates the metaphor's beginning.

Pruning the healthy parts of a fruit tree has several benefits. First, it strengthens the tree. Where before the tree’s sap was to grow fruit, pruning allows the tree sap to make the branch harder and stronger. Instead of sap going to grow fruit, it goes toward growing the branch. Going through hardships can cause a person to grow stronger in his faith and relationship with God.

Second, pruning a healthy branch can improve fruit production and fruit quality. Pruning stimulates new growth—offshoots—so more branches grow. As a result, each of those branches produces fruit instead of just the unpruned branch growing fruit. God’s pruning of His child causes that person to grow in many areas, so new spiritual fruit and Christian offspring grow from that believer. Pruning grows a person’s relationship with God. The deeper relationship with God causes growth of spiritual fruit, like patience, wisdom, compassion, joy, and peace. The deeper relationship with God grows the quality of that fruit, causing a deeper faith, greater peace, etc. Growth from a closer relationship with God leads to sharing the gospel and a personal testimony about God more. These lead to other people believing in Jesus and His saving them. Pruning may cause brief pain mental, heart, and/or physical. This pain is worth it to see more people saved by Jesus and experience a deeper relationship with God.

Third, pruning a branch helps a tree become more pest and disease resistant. Pruning causes growth in strength and resilience. Like a person’s health, outside influences can cause a tree to grow stronger so the tree can withstand forces that would cause it to shrivel, produce less fruit, and/or die. God allows a person to confront challenges for growth, not destruction. By going through trials, like the burnishing of metals, God removes impurities from His children. His strength alone is how they withstand adversity. Christians can progress despite adversity. James, Peter, and Paul wrote about perseverance, endurance, testing, patience, and building Christian character in James 1, 1 Peter 1, and Romans 5:3-5. Trials, though unwanted, have benefits just like pruning healthy branches has benefits.

Fourth, pruning trees opens the tree canopy so sunlight can reach more limbs and fruit. For this reason, fruit trees are wide and not very tall. More sun causes more fruit to grow on the tree. Also, by pruning the canopy, fruit does not grow higher in the tree. This makes it easier to reach all fruit during harvest season. A person who knows the Bible can only withstand some storms or temptations. A person whom Jesus saves and who grows in his relationship with God through daily prayer, Bible study, meditation, worship, and obedience to Him has a faith that has grown deep and wide. Temptations, trials, storms, and disease might assail a believer and might cause him to stall in his growth, but these can cause growth in his relationship with and faith in God. These occurrences can strengthen a believer, cause new growth on branches, and result in the growth of new and larger fruit. The outcome of God's gospel is evident in one's life. People see the gospel’s impact on people around the strengthening and growing Christian as he shares his testimony and God’s gospel.

Without removing dead limbs on a tree, diseases and/or pests kill the tree or cause it to become stunted and produce minimal fruit. By pruning healthy branches, trees become stronger and produce more and better fruit. Pruning stops the spread of diseases and pests that could harm the fruit or the sap (testimony) in the tree. It allows more sunlight, which causes more fruit to grow and makes the branches more accessible to harvesters.

When we face trials and hardships, we can grow stronger and produce more and better fruit. Instead of growing stronger through trials, we can freeze up and then get hurt or killed. God prefers us to grow stronger and bear more and better fruit. He allows or causes things to grow our relationship with Him and our trust in Him. God allows hardships to confront us to prune the dead branches from our lives. We should aim to grow, so we ask God what He wants us to learn from our situations. God wants us to grow to trust Him more, to have a deeper relationship with Him, and to become more Christlike. He will send you through fires to remove impurities and strengthen you. When strengthened by God, you, too, can say, “No weapon formed against us will prosper” (Isaiah 54:17).

Fruit or Fire.

Faith or Fruitlessness.

Which do you choose? I pray you choose to grow in your relationship with God and to produce more and better fruit within you that leads to more fruit—Christians—for God’s kingdom.

“No weapon formed against you shall prosper, and you will refute every tongue that accuses you. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their vindication is from Me,” declares the LORD. (Isaiah 54:17)

 (Bible verse picture from You Version Bible app)

Love and Protection

 

And take the helmet of salvation and the sword that the Spirit wields, which is the Word of God. (Ephesians 6:17 [AMPC])

Yesterday, I was reading about the armor of God in Ephesians 6 in the Amplified translation of the Bible. In verse seventeen, Paul said, “Take the sword that the Spirit wields, which is the word of God.” I had never read that last part before, “that the Spirit wields.” Yes, we understand each of these pieces of armor is God’s armor for His children who take and wear it. In our heads, as we read this chapter of Ephesians, we know this armor comes from God and helps us in our battles. The question though is this; how many of us just take it and do what we think we must do? God did not intend His children wear it without His power, strength, guidance, encouragement, and knowledge.

Consider verse seventeen. The point of this verse is you must take hold of God’s sword and join Him in holding the sword while He defends you or leads you. Do you understand this? The same thing should happen as we put on each piece of armor. The armor is God’s. He gives it to us and commands us to put it on each day, just as Paul commanded the Ephesians. Never do Christians have ownership of the armor they wear. The armor comes from God to help us.

This same thing applies to each piece of the armor we take and wear. Consider it this way. Wear the helmet to protect your head and keep remembering God is your salvation. Put on the shield of faith so you douse the flaming darts and arrows Satan shoots your way to kill you and lead you to doubt God and His protection and goodness over you. Continue to have a strong faith. Put on the armor of preparation to cover your feet. These armored shoes will prepare you to be ready with the good news of Christ, with firm-footing and stability to battle in rough terrain without doubting God. They will lead you in God’s path for your safety and His purpose of peace. Put on God’s breastplate to protect your vital organs and to give you His integrity and righteousness through Jesus. Tighten the belt of truth around you so you will always know God’s truth and can defeat Satan’s lies and not become distracted and forlorn by them. With each these pieces of armor, always pray in the Spirit with every kind of prayer. By doing this, God encourages you as you wear it and you have faith in Him in all things remembering He is almighty. Most of all, put on God’s complete armor, by which He saves you from Satan’s distresses, so you can resist him and stand firmly in your faith in God.

So many of us pray for the armor of God then walk away thinking, “I've got this.” Instead of this attitude, we should put on God’s armor and walk with Him holding onto His sword, wearing His helmet, tightening His belt around our waist, stepping in faith in His shoes, and raising His shield, so He wins the battle for us. By doing this, God receives the glory, He encourages us in our faith, grows us to be like Him, and we become closer in oneness with Him. Each piece of the armor of God is for bodily protection and a minute-by-minute reminder that God is the One who goes before us, behind us, above us, and with us. His armor protects us from doubting, from fearing, from quitting, and from falling. 

The Spirit wields the sword.

We hold it with Him while He swings it for God’s glory and our good. 

When was the last time you took God’s armor and allowed Him to protect you and be your champion?

Aligned by Cataclysm

Aligned by Cataclysm

Crash of waves. Roll of thunder.

A mighty cataclysm of force will be

The moment of change, the reason of strain,

Status quo will cease to be.

Change, they say, is inevitable;

If that’s so, why do we battle against it so?

Where battle is greatest, our fight rages hardest;

Why won’t we let it go?

Some people grow with little fight

While others roar against the flow.

Staying in calm waters is peaceful they say,

Yet stagnant and stale it grows.

Change for change sake is often unwise,

While learning from life’s storms is wise.

“Come follow Me,” the Teacher said,

Does not mean following as blind.

It’s a willingness to trust with faith

The One of whom God’s prophets told;

It’s a leaning completely upon His grace

At first timid, then more bold.

“Come follow Me,” makes one giddy at first,

Then recognition of what that means

Can cause doubt, indecision, and rebellion;

Yet without storms growth is rarely seen.

Doubt, indecision, and disobedience,

“My choice,” we often say,

But if we’re to grow and if we’re to go,

Then to the Master we must obey.

“What’s that?” you say, I hear nothing now,

The heavens seem closed to my prayers.

God’s shut His door, His ears closed, it feels.

Please God don’t leave me here.

I want You; I choose You.

How can I change? What have I done?

How can I grow like You?

“Listen carefully. Have peace. Walk My way.

I’ve been waiting. Follow Me through the waves.

It lasts mere moments in history. Trust Me now.

Share the burden with Me. I’ll show you how.

Come on. You have it. Keep your eyes on Me.

You are growing, keep walking and see.

The cataclysm, a great force, don’t resist.

Grow with the storm. Change, don’t just exist.

I’m calling you to more than each breath.

I call you to follow, tell, and show.”

What greater purpose? What better change? Why did I say no?

Lord, those storms strong, thunder peals loud, waves raged over my head;

In and by them You brought me through.

Now I will never be the same, I hear You call my name

Call and grow me, take and mould me, I’m Yours to use.

For growth does come through cataclysm

Through it I’m more nearly aligned with Thee.

--Gail Suratt Davis

July 27, 2019

Trials, Troubles, and Truth

          We live in a world that is different from thirteen years ago. The world is different from a generation ago. People speak of how different things are. They give examples of disrespect to adults and authority. They speak of fear of crime and wars. They even voice that weather is not the same; it is more violent. I consider these things and see that, yes, a lack of respect for authority figures and humans is evident. I live the change of the physical environment. People are losing heart and faith in humanity. They are erecting walls around their homes. These people are installing security systems in their homes, cars, and work places. Security companies patrol in their personal spheres of living. People are removing their landline telephones to avoid intrusion into their private lives, but at the same time, they are more involved in the cyber-world through emails and social networks. People are afraid, but they are lonely, too, and trying to fill the vacuum from a lack of relationships. This is America.

       Let us consider worldwide. There is rampant poverty, hunger, crime, wars, and religious intolerance. There is corruption, abuse, fear, and a breakdown in human relationships. Consider it this way; everyone experiences trials. Do not think I am discounting how hard trials are, but consider, everyday types of trials and severe types of trials affect everyone. When we are going through our particular hard time, we feel it is the hardest thing to do. It is hard. I very seldom meet people who are thankful they went through a trial. In time, though, we look outside ourselves and see other people are having a more difficult time in life. We see there are harder times people endure, such as mass genocide, religious persecution, executions, starvation, and becoming separated from family when fleeing for their lives. We live in this world.  

            A few people might say, oh, we must be getting near the end times. People might be shocked at first, but then gradually return to their jobs or school and forget what is happening elsewhere. I am not trying to say we are crass and unfeeling. What I am trying to make understood is that, for the largest number of us, persecution is a word in our vocabulary that sharply breaks into our mind periodically with media images and reports, but we do not live persecuted, so we do not take much notice of it. For millions of people, though, persecuted living is their reality. They are hunted by military regimes because of their culture or their faith. They are running in fear through forests, jungles, or deserts to get away from a present reality of torture, forced military service, prison, or execution. We each experience our own trials, but many million are in this world right now experiencing their trials that are “unto death.”     

            The statistics of these trials and persecutions point to areas around the globe predominantly near the equator, but include China, India, and North Korea, as well. With the violence, we hear reported from these places, we think the end times are coming. We do not know that is true; we only understand what is happening. Jesus stated, "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone” (Matthew 24:36 NASB). We may be in the end time or we may not be; what is important is we keep living and believing in Jesus Christ as our Savior. Without Jesus, living our lives, wherever we are, is futile. What is the purpose of living through this?  

            Let me offer a thought. God’s purpose for allowing trials is to strengthen His children in their faith and character and their dependence upon Him. His purpose for allowing trials in the lives of nonbelievers is so they will turn to Him as their Savior and Father in heaven. I understand our ease to blame bad things on God because He let them happen. What if we took the positive view, though, and considered that He allowed them to happen to teach us He will take care of us, to teach us He is stronger than the situation. We must come to the point where we learn that we must quit fighting this trial in our own strength and allow God to take charge. When we have come through the trial, we are stronger Christians. How does that work, though, for those going through extreme trials and persecution? I do not know exactly. I have heard a few stories from those surviving extreme trials. We do not often receive news from those who survived religious persecution through torture, imprisonment, removal of human rights, and wars. From what I have heard and read, several persecuted believers say they waited on the Lord and endured through prayer, reviewing memorized Bible verses, singing hymns, and talking to other believers in the places where they were held. God is still God in the midst of persecutions and He works to grow a stronger believer in these circumstances, as He does in our lives. Through their prayers, verses, songs, and encouragements from other believers, they became stronger and endured their trials while remaining in their faith. Yes, a few people do recant their faith. There are people who do not recant and are killed or die. A few people do not recant and live. Either way, these latter two came out of the difficult experience changed; they are stronger believers.  

 We each will go through trials, whether severe or not. God gives us the opportunity to rely upon our own strength or rely on His strength, which will take us through the fire and make us stronger. Whichever way we choose to face the trial, if we relied on God, we are saved to live now on earth or to live now in His heaven. Either way, God is victorious. If we do not reply on God, we may survive the trial in our own strength or we may not. What is important to know, though, is that we have not actually won. Our unbelief has won us a temporary respite on this earth, but we cannot experience eternal victory in heaven without God and His plan for salvation through Jesus Christ. John said, “He (Jesus) must increase and I must decrease.” John trusted Jesus was the one for whom he was making the way. Jesus is God’s anointed One through whose death and resurrection we can obtain eternal life. John understood that he was only a man, but Jesus is the One sent by God. He acknowledged that when he said, "He who comes from above is above all; he who is of the earth is from the earth and speaks of the earth. He who comes from heaven is above all. He who has received His testimony has set his seal to this, that God is true” (John 3:31, 33 NASB).

John and others came to believe that God is true. People from the beginning of the world understood God was true. Consider Adam, Abraham, Moses, Noah, David, the prophets, and now John the Baptist. They knew then God was true. John bore witness to the fact Jesus is God’s Son, come to take away the sins of the world.

 If you had to go through an intense time or trial, what would you do? Would you blame God for letting that happen to you? Alternatively, would you become strong in the Lord knowing He has already conquered all things and He will get you through your time now? The latter will make you into a believer. The former will make you tired and, maybe even quit. Are you going through a trial now? Are you going to let God be your strength? One day we may have to fight the extreme trials we hear of in other countries where Satan’s slaves are creating life-changing problems. Now is the time to grow in the strength of the Lord, before you go through horrendous times, so that you can stand strong now and forever more. Right now, Jesus is offering you a relationship with Him, the relationship of which you have a void in your life. This relationship is unbounded, unforced, and all loving. God wants only what is best for you, peace, love, and eternal life with Him in heaven. He will give you everything you need to live now, on this earth, and forever…Love, Faith, Hope, and Peace