Unity!

"May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Romans 15:5-6

When I was growing up, I had the belief that the church I was going to was the only church where someone could be saved at. I would ask my friends to come to church with me all the time- even though they all had their own churches they belonged to, because I was under the mistaken impression that our way was the only way.

Thank God I know better now! It's interesting as you spend more time walking with God that you see that there are different ways to worship God, and none of them are "the only way". Every church has a different style, and they are all okay for that group of people. But every once in a while, someone gets a bee in their bonnet about this or that and then a crack starts to form within the church body. Especially in this day and age, it's so important to stay focused and see the beginnings of division for what it is- the enemy trying to breech the stronghold.

Our focus should be God. When we find ourselves getting annoyed by this or that within the church we should take a look within and see how we're allowing a distraction to prevent us from praising God. And everything we do within the church should be to bring glory to God. If I can't bring glory to God through my percussion, then I shouldn't be doing it. When it becomes about me, and not about Him, then I need to stop doing it. It's not about me. And I think if we all just keep reminding ourselves of that, we will go a long way in avoiding and preventing division within the church. And when I say "the church" I don't specifically mean my church or your church, I mean our church. I mean that our two very different churches have a common purpose- a common denominator in that we want to see more souls won for Jesus, we just may have different ways about going about that. And that's fantastic. Not everyone likes vanilla ice cream, some people prefer chocolate, and are more likely to walk in the door of the place that sells chocolate over the place that sells just vanilla. God is worth all of our efforts, lets just remember to keep in mind that our efforts are united by the same end goal.