Oneness

Heard on the radio:

"Oneness of faith and oneness with others begin with oneness with God."

Or, in other words,
Until people first have a personal relationship with God, they will not be able to all see alike and have unity with one another.

I still remember way back (w-a-y b-a-c-k) when I was witnessing to someone (an adult) when I was teaching school . We were discussing why there were so many ways people believed.

I remember telling them,

"If you have God's Spirit and I have God's Spirit, He is NOT going to tell you one thing is right and tell me something different. If we are both tuned in to Him, we'll be believing the same things. When there are differences, either one or both of us is not listening to Him."

Generally speaking, people tend to raise "what I believe" very high. Listen to any conversation. One person will say something and almost with out fail, you'll hear someone else chime in, "Well, I think..." and state the conclusion they have personally come to about some matter.

We have a whole world full of people who highly value their own ideas and opinions about how things should or should not be (in all areas of life). Many times the reason they place such high value on their own idea is because it allows them the freedom to live their lives in a way they want to and feel okay with it.

To be this way is human nature which is exacerbated by carnality. It takes a close relationship with God and complete determination to die to anything that is NOT His way to achieve oneness of faith and oneness with others-- and even then, we'll only achieve it in areas that matter to God because those are the areas we submit our will to His.

That's why unity is such a miracle. That's why we teach sanctification is not optional to have a church of God. We MUST die to our our will and ways. Otherwise, it will not be possible.

Anywhere unity fails, one or more have failed to listen to God's voice.

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