Unity with Questions

Have you ever played soccer with a disorganized team?  A team where the biggest, toughest, most obnoxious players each go their own way, ignoring the rules and other team members.  They never win a game against an organized team, unless a coach shows up to guide them, explain rules and helps all players work together to be the best team they can be.

The coach is the key, no matter how good a star player is or how many there are, they cannot win a game without their coach’s guidance.  And if that team fails the coach answers for it. If it fails . . .

There is one team that will never fail.  When players listen to the Coach and don’t put themselves ahead of Him or give up, they will succeed.  There may be many extra innings but they will win, every time.

You know what team that is.  You meet it every Sunday and hopefully more often.  It’s the team God set up for all humanity – Team Jesus.

You’ve got the instruction book, our Bible.  You’ve got the Coach, Jesus.  And you’ve got something that no worldly coach will ever have – you’ve got the Holy Spirit within, guiding and helping whenever you pay attention and truly seek Him.

Team Jesus has been around for a couple of millennia now and is certainly successful in many of God’s Churches, so why is the world still so vulgar and disorganized?   Fault-finding and finger-pointing are pointless, please don’t indulge those – forgive as our coach has taught us.  Let’s consider, ponder and find a way forward together.  A way that will help unknowing folks want to come home.

Most churches are unified in their belief of God and Jesus, their acceptance of the Holy Spirit and are happy to proclaim that in their services. But what happens outside a unified church is also important, remember the great commission.  How can the church become unified with the world without being corrupted by it, without setting God’s Word aside as only a nice suggestion?

What did the Apostles do?  Were people more intelligent in Jesus’ time?  Were they able to discern things that we cannot?  It’s been proven that people were just as intelligent now as they were then – human intelligence has not changed since Jesus walked amongst us. We do have more knowledge, but what’s knowledge without a team, without a spiritual leader, without Christian discernment?

What did Paul, Silas and Timothy do?  What did other church leaders in the Old and New Testaments do? The answers are in God’s Word.  Perhaps review Acts, an epistle or two, consider John 13:35 and Matthew 28:16-20.  Meditate a bit and consider how your life experience compares.  What can you realistically do with your gifts, and maybe encourage others to do, for human unity?

We know how the world is now.  Consider why society is devolving so badly?  Why do different denominations exist?  What do you think?  Please stop, ruminate on these questions and consider your thoughts carefully.  You don’t have to be a scholar or church leader; we’re all unique, we all know things that others don’t.  Understanding will become clearer as you think, consider Christ’s love and listen for Spirit’s input.  You may find a path that the rest of us never would.

When every player listens to the Coach, respects and co-operates with other players, our team wins.  As this is presently a fallen world we may lose some skirmishes, but we know how it ends – Team Jesus wins – the Bible says so.  Please check Daniel 7 or Revelation, when we listen to our Coach and stay united in His ways as His people, we win.