Unity doesn’t come from others conforming to your opinions or the group you hang out with – as many seem to think in these days.
Unity comes from all of us conforming to the Lord, the Creator of the world, and His opinions. He created the world and knows how He intended life on earth to be.
We must be willing to be teachable and yield to seeing things more clearly – learning, growing, changing. Sometimes we need to give up our pet doctrines and things we have been taught since we were young. These kinds of things are not easy to change. But to go where we need to go, we will HAVE TO change!
We must compromise – but not to the opinions of men. We humble ourselves before our God. He made the world not us. So it is only by conforming to His ways that we can prosper.
Where do we find God’s thoughts? In the beliefs and doctrines of the church we grew up in? In the things we have unconsciously been taught to believe all of our lives?
No! Our basic internal thoughts are many times very wrong, whether thoughts and beliefs about ourselves, about God, or about others. I have heard our basic internal belief systems called “BS”. So be willing to change your “BS” into truth.
Where do we find God’s thoughts? God’s thoughts are found in His Word, the Holy Bible – His Word minus the traditions and inaccurate beliefs grown up around it. Some think the Bible is an old fashioned book full of rules and regulations presenting a demanding God instead of a loving Father. They don’t realize it is a book of life and wisdom. You have to be able to see it with new eyes. Read it like you have never read it before, prepared to take it a truth.
We need to open up His Word with new, teachable eyes, willing to see what is plainly there and take it just as it is written. We need to stop seeing life through our own personal religious lens – and see things instead through the loving nature of God. But even more, we need to also see through His righteousness and purity, through God’s unchangeable view of right and wrong. Acceptance doesn’t mean agreement.
And even with true “spiritual knowledge” we must be kind and understanding of others, see and understand their viewpoint, and meet them where they are.
There is so much we as the church have messed up. We presented a mean and judging God for so many years that it turned many from Him. This became ingrained in the very inmost parts of people – so that they were just waiting to get swatted and punished by an angry God.
Then when we began presenting Him as a loving Father, we went so far in the other direction that people believe in a God who accepts you not only as you are, but He accepts everything about you, right or wrong.
He does love you and accept you from where you are, but anything contrary to His Word and principles and His original intention in Creation built into you life will hurt you and others and be a detriment to your life reaching its full potential.
God loves you, but you will have to change many things in your thinking, believing and lifestyle as you go on with Him. Any area in your life outside of His will and plan for you can’t prosper no matter how much He loves you and longs for good things for you.
So, it’s time to move back to the balance of believing in a loving God and Father who also has strong feelings about right and wrong and expects us to conform to HIS ways not our own.
So open up the Word of God with new open eyes. Pray for the Lord to reveal truth to you. He has promised that the Holy Spirit will guide you into ALL truth – but only if you are open to it.
I will be adding some articles about knowing God and the character of God so that we can understand the Old Testament picture of God in the light of the New Testament image of God in Jesus in the next few posts.
For now, take a look at a post of wrote on how to know God.
In conclusion, YOUR OPINIONS ARE PROBABLY NOT FULLY RIGHT! Your point of view is not the center of the universe.
Be teachable and wiling to change. Accept others and love them even if you don’t agree with them. Change your viewpoint of life from your own thoughts to God’s thoughts. The more you do this, the better your life will be and the lives of those around you.