stephen R Harrison

Church is the body of Christ. And that body is broken. Members of that body are sinful, wounded, bruised, offended, and wrecked! The Good News (gospel) is that the body is connected to the Head that is Christ and He is our healer! He foremost forgives us (all of us) from our sins (all of them)! Oh, what a Savior! He is able to heal us physically, mentally, emotionally, and relationally. Oh, what a Healer! Oh, how undeserving we are!

Church is a family, with God at the helm as the loving Father. Abba! Daddy! We are brothers and sisters because His blood makes us kin. We take on His Name – the One above all others – and leave our old identity behind. We are adopted into His family! He, being the Good Father, knows what’s best for His children. When we go astray, He is there to lead us back to Him. When we have a family feud, He is there to remind us of our covenant with Him and one another. When we try and take on sinful characteristics of our former family (the world, the flesh, the devil), He beckons us to return to our First Love and put off those garments of wickedness as we have been called out of darkness into His marvelous light.

Church should display unity. I mean, isn’t the Godhead Father, Son, and Holy Spirit united? Perfectly! There is power in unity! In John 17, Jesus prayed that all believers throughout all time would genuinely display a supernatural unity that only can be found through Him. This unity, He said, would astound the world around us. As we become one heart and mind, just like and with the Father and the Son, the godless world around us will have the evidence they need to know God send the Son because of His great love! The purpose in this unity is not for us…it is for Him…to draw those not in the Lord and not in the church family to Him! Our lack of unity as the church will keep people from getting to Jesus! We pervert His grace and forgiveness with disunity and division!

I hate it when I see churches bashing churches, but more specifically, local church members bashing local church members. Why? It destroys the unity of the whole and is a horrible witness to a watching world in desperate need of the Savior. The Message paraphrase of John 17:23 says “they’ll be mature” when they have this oneness. There’s nothing more immature (and hurtful) in the local body of Christ than bashing other members of the same body – publicly, privately, disguised as prayer, blatant in gossip, masked in anonymity, or fueled by flesh.

Unity is vital to furthering God’s mission. When church members aren’t in unity, it stops the forward movement of the gospel in its tracks in that local church. Stops it dead! But, this is going to happen from time to time as an imperfect, sinful people. That’s why we must remember we are connected to the Head that is Christ. He not only makes us one, but determines the process of how we regain unity. Forgiveness, repentance, grace, mercy, and love are the necessary tools to recover unity. If we bring our own tools to do surgery of the heart – gossip, slander, bitterness, hatred, deception, pride, etc. then we set back the unity between not only a few believers, but the entire local church! The watching world – the one looking for real Christianity and genuine Christians – “will know that we are His disciples if we love one another” (John 13:35). The longer we allow disunity, bitterness, anger, slander, and other vices of Satan to control us, the less powerful and effective we are in the gospel mission of God. And the more it grieves the Father!

As we truly love and forgive one another, I mean really loving and forgiving instead of fighting and warring with brothers and sisters, slaying our own body, we will then cause the world without Christ around us to take notice and desire those kinds of relationships! The flesh, world, and devil have taught us all well how to retaliate and hurt others – especially when we hurt. Those weapons are carnal and are not the body of Christ’s to pick up! Our enemies are not each other and our weapons are not the worlds! Our weapons of prayer, faith, salvation, His Word, truth, the Gospel, and righteousness unite us to battle and defeat our real enemy Satan and stop slaying one another. Jesus said a house divided cannot stand. We are all guilty of dividing ourselves over petty and peripheral. That’s just juvenile and foolish. But when we allow or cause division to remain and reign in the local church over real issues like hurt and sin, we exclaim to the whole local church, entire body of Christ, and hopelessly lost people around us that Jesus’ blood is ineffective, forgiveness isn’t applicable, crucifixion is in vain, and resurrection is powerless. We must repent!

If the local church is so focused on their internal squabbles, they will inevitably miss and drive away guests and those seeking the Lord. I wholeheartedly believe that this will kill a church! If we would just go ahead and forgive and repent, using the biblical steps of reconciliation for believers like those found in Matthew 18:15-17 to, as it says, “win my brother back” instead of selfishly wanting to win the argument or give a piece of my mind, how much more effective would the local church be in the Kingdom of God? The point is unity, not more disunity! The point is creating a base of peace and harmony the gospel work Jesus has called us to can flourish! Those outside the local church sometimes use whatever they can to dismantle and diminish the church. Why do we keep on supplying the bullets for them to shoot? If those outside the church really encountered genuine love, compassion, and unity, just imagine how unstoppable we would be in reaching this world for Jesus! Instead, sadly, we all too often present a hypocritical, rancid, powerless church that “goes along with the empty-headed, mindless crowd” (Ephesians 4:17).

Paul warns in Galatians 5:13-18, “You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.” I sometimes want to scream to my local church “Stop biting and devouring one another – you’re killing us!” Paul goes on to say, “Love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.”

Is the local church of Jesus Christ the harbor from factions, slander, gossip, bitterness, rage, and such? Or is it a breeding ground – a bastion of rancor, antagonism, pettiness, and folly. As we pursue unity and authentic fellowship of the body of Christ, we will encounter opportunities that will unite or divide us? Is Christ divided? Our oneness and harmony can either reflect the beautiful, supernatural expression of unity and diversity found only in the Trinity and power of the cross, or our hostility and enmity can reveal the sin and wretchedness we say we hate. We must choose wisely. Please. It is worth it.