In my last post,we looked at the value of prayer. The next thing God showed us was unity. In serving God, there’s no “us against them.” We're all in this together, serving one God. One heart, one mind, one purpose.
Unity should be a big deal for Christ followers. In our world, there is much conflict and fragmentation. In His body, we should look different.
If we would learn to walk as He designed us to walk, we would function as His body, which looks very different than just serving side by side. We would take care of one another. There would be the gift of mercy, the gift of compassion, the gift of discernment, functioning together.
We need to be united together in Christ. There's power in that.
Don’t get me wrong. There can be disagreements. But our relationships, even our disagreements, should look different because we are united in Him, we belong to Him. Are we functioning as His body? Do we act as though we belong to one another? Do we act as though we belong to God?
It's way deeper than friendship — because He's the point.
Not Us Against Them
Many different ministries are happening on Sunday mornings. Something in one ministry can have an impact on another. We need to be united together in these instances.
An example of this happened in our old building where the auditorium was just across the hall from the preschool room. The preschool’s sound system would sometimes boom a bit of bass into the adult worship service.
When that happened, someone would come out of the auditorium and tell the preschool director to turn down her music. Her response could have been: “We heard your music earlier. We need to have our music back here, too.”
There could have been an us-against-them spirit. But there wasn't. We had prayed for those big people in the auditorium. We had prayed that there would be no distractions, that they would meet Jesus. We didn't want to be a distraction.
The preschool room was not more important to them than the auditorium. It was all one heart.
The Body Working Together
A friend once told me that God revealed to her a visual of how this works. She was working in her kitchen one night when she cut her finger with a knife. Bleeding, she grabbed a paper towel and held her finger tightly with her other hand, ran to the bathroom, got a Band-Aid, cleaned the cut and applied a bandage. This happened in one seamless moment. Her hand did not hesitate to apply pressure. Her feet didn’t wonder if they should make time to run to the bathroom. Her eyes did not stop seeing, her ears did not stop hearing, her lungs did not stop breathing. They all worked together to bring healing to the hurt. Her body functioned as one.
I think the analogy is obvious, but how often do we hesitate when we know that a part of Christ’s body is hurting? How often do we find reasons not to attend to the bleeding?
Jesus in Our Halls
Once when I was praying for Kids Community, I had this picture of Jesus at the end of the hallway. He was sitting on the floor at the end of the hallway and kids were climbing all over Him. There was a glow in the ministry because He was there.
I asked, “Jesus, what would our Kids Community look like if you were really here, walking up and down the halls?”
He quickly answered, “I am here.” He is greeting, comforting, instructing the children through us. That’s when I began to see the men and women loving, hugging, and teaching our children as the physical extension of Jesus. We're it.
Can you tell there is a Holy God living in us? When a bunch of us are together, people should gasp because of the holy presence inside us. Are we functioning as one body? This is what God teaches us as He draws us more and more into His design. When this happens, others get to see who Jesus is.
In the next blog, I’ll share why loving each other is so important when serving.