In a team based sport, the objective is, obviously, to win. To succeed in achieving this victory, the team needs to work together as one. Each person does their part as they all work together. They each may have slightly different roles but their end goal is the same. They are united.
If something is united it is not separate, or of a different “mind” or purpose, but it is all the same. In the old days when a farmer hitched together two horses or oxen, he needs then to be of the same mind. When one horse walked a certain speed, the other needed to do the same so that the plow would pull properly. When two people move a heavy piece of furniture down the stairs they need to work together in unison so that they do not drop the thing that they are carrying.
Unity is what the church needs to be filled with. United under the same beliefs that have been handed down for the last two thousand years.
Ephesians 4:1-6 “I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called,
With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love;
Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling;
One Lord, one faith, one baptism,
One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.”
Endeavor means to try hard to do or achieve something, or to strive or to work with a specific goal of purpose. As Christians we need to endeavor to all have the same beliefs, because there is only one God. There is only one Lord. Jesus didn’t have many different teachings that taught contradictory things to each other. He taught one gospel, and under that gospel His followers need to be united under.
“One” is singular, not plural or many. One. Yet many professing Christian churches seem to have this all wrong. After all, why does an individual split off from a church and establish a new one? Because they don’t believe in the same teachings. That is not unity in the Spirit. If everyone who professed to be a Christian believed the Word as it is written in the Bible, we wouldn’t have Lutherans, Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, etc. They would instead be known as just a “Christian” because they would be a follower of Christ.
Division in a church is not a good thing, because it means that not everyone is united under the same beliefs. The same Spirit that was in Paul and Peter and John should be the same Spirit that is inside each and every one of us.
So let us endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit. Let us be united under the one, true God, and the one true faith, and let us follow His teachings without dispute and dissention. One Lord. One faith. One baptism. United under the Word of God.
In Christ
Andrew
Teufer Lake King James Bible Church 