The earliest followers of Jesus were a community in unity. Contrast this with what God says he hates: “anyone who stirs up trouble among the faithful” (Proverbs 6:19). Heaven despises troublemakers in family of God; this may lie behind Jesus’ prayer in John 17:21, “I pray that they will all be one…”
It is Important to distinguish between unity and uniformity. Unity is God-centered, uniformity is human-centered. In true unity and agreement, what we do is not center stage; what God is doing is. Unity gives life; uniformity strangles it with sameness masquerading as submission.
All Together Now
October 15, 2017 • Graeme Sellers
More from
Life Together
Our Life Together Is a Life for Others
November 26, 2017 • Graeme Sellers
Most churches—ours included, if we’re honest—are essentially churches for us, organized with our comfort, preferences, and perspectives in mind. But what if our thinking and doing in our life together were first informed by deep compassion for those who are lost in the seductive embrace of a world that promises everything but delivers so little? When God builds His church He doesn’t build it for us. He builds it for the people He misses the most. Jesus wants to raise up a church that rises to the occasion of God’s heart for the world. That’s why our life together is a life for others.
Life Together: Better, Safer, Stronger
November 19, 2017 • Graeme Sellers
We are better together than we are alone. We’re also safer together. Safer in this way specifically: in receiving and responding to correction. Of course, we don’t like being corrected. It sometimes makes us defensive and almost always makes us uncomfortable. But here’s the thing: being comfortable may feel better but being appropriately corrected leads to the best life we can have with God.
