Christ Prayed For Unity
How To Have The Right Kind Of Unity
Introduction
What should be the basis of unity?
If you think just being together makes us united you are mistaken.
Will just any unity suffice to meet God’s definition.
If you tied two cats tails together and hung them on a close line, you would have union, but you most certainly would not have unity.

God wants us to be united in our relationship as Christians.
Jesus prayed to God “that they all might be one”.
Just like Jesus said that He and The Father were one, so we should be one with Him in spirit and purpose.
How are we to be one?

Sadly, many people do not seem to care to seek the solution to this problem.
Jesus gives the basis for unity in John 17:17 “Sancitify them by Your truth, Your word is truth”
Truth is the most important part of unity.
Even if you have many to agree to a standard that is not the truth, you will not have true unity as God wants it.
The unity we must seek is the unity that God teaches us in His word.
The problem of why there is so much division in the religious world is because people do not care to follow the only true standard of unity.
That is the Bible, and the truth it offers.

In the denominational world, there are thousands of different groups teaching different doctrines.
The only way that they can be agreeable to this arrangement is to ignore the truth of God’s word.
With God there is no compromise.
It is His way.
No man has a right to change His way.
But they do it all the time.
When people reject the truth and do what they want to do, they must reject the parts of the Bible they do not like, and they add whatever they want.
God is not happy with this.
God has warned in His book, what will happen to those who add or remove from the book, and what will happen to those who stray from the truth of God’s word.
They will be punished forever.

Paul tells us how to have Biblical unity.
“Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and same judgment” (1 Corinthians 1:10).
In order to have the same mind and same judgment we must have only the same beliefs and practices as found only in the New Testament.
Throughout the Bible man’s worship and service to God was either accepted or rejected depending on man’s obedience to God’s commands (Genesis 4:4-5, Leviticus 10:1-2).
There can be no unity between those who follow human opinion and those who follow only the word of God as found in the Bible.
They like to call it: “Unity In Diversity”.
Now that sounds pretty good.
You believe what you want to believe, and we will believe what we want to believe, and if there is any difference we will just ignore it.
This is okay with them until someone starts teaching them what the Bible teaches.
What this is really saying is that they have no confidence in their supposed faith to get them to heaven.
True Christians are commanded to separate from these types of people.
“Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?...Therefore come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord” (2 Corinthians 6:14, 17).
Here we are forbidden to have unity with those who follow the false doctrines of men.

How can the denominational world defend their many differing doctrines when they cannot justify them scripturally?
First of all, they can’t.
Second, they do not even try to justify their doctrines.
In trying to justify what one does he asks, “Is it a salvation issue?”
In other words, “Does it really matter?”
With this reasoning, anything you do not agree with is not a salvation issue for them.
For them, faith is a salvation issue, but baptism is not a salvation issue.
If one can shift the focus then there is no necessity in proving or defending one’s unscriptural practice.
But try showing them from the Bible what God says, and they will have a problem with that.

Conclusion
Anything that differs from God’s word is sin and sin is a salvation issue, “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).
In speaking of the doctrine of Christ, “If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into your house nor greet him; for he who greets him shares in his evil deeds” (2 John 10-11).
Let’s not share in the evil deeds of the denominational world in joining with them or giving them any encouragement in their evil deeds.
If we do we will be spending eternity with them.

By Carey Scott

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