The Body of Christ should do this one thing to have unity in Jesus

Welcome to episode 224.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Spending time in the Word of God is the best way to spend time with God. Welcome to No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, where we will encourage, inspire, and empower you to live your best life in Christ. Here's Greg.

Welcome to episode 224. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, I am going to continue on talking about the body of Christ, but I want to start talking about unity. Since you and I, if you've accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, and I'm making that assumption that you are a Jesus fanatic like me, that you've come here, you know this is a Bible study, or you know I'm going to read scripture. And so what I want to do, I want to make sure that you and I are on the same page. When I say unity, I mean that we have the exact same idea about the exact same concept or the truth. And there's only a few of these truths that I think that you and I can agree on. And I don't even know who you are, but I'm going to make some assumptions, or I'm going to make some declarations— is probably a better way to say the same thing— that you and I agree that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. I believe that is a universal truth as a Christian, that if you cannot declare Jesus Christ the Son of God and you cannot declare that he has risen from the dead, I don't think you and I are gonna be able to have any type of unity. We are not gonna be able to come together, all gonna be part of the same body. We've talked about this. Now, we're not gonna look at the things in this world and things going on in yours or my life. Going to look at them the same way because we come at it from a different, totally different background. There's no way that you and I were raised in identical home structures. We may or may not share political views. Now, you may be liberal, you may be conservative, you may be more conservative than me. I, you know, there's no way of knowing. And politically, it doesn't matter. What matters is the truth and how you see the truth. And this is what I'm trying to get to, these truths that we're going to declare so that we can have unity is it's going to be pretty simple and pretty basic. One of them is that the Word of God is the inerrant Word of God. Without error is kind of what I mean, and that's a fancy-pants word. I didn't make that word up, somebody else had made it up. That is without error. That means there are no errors in the Bible. And now you could argue that some of these translations— I, you know, we're not going to get down in the weeds, but we're going to say that the Bible, the original Bible, is the Word of God. It is one author, there are many writers. And, you know, we can argue about, you know, how were they inspired. We're not going to argue about it. We're going to come together, and this is unity. It's not about arguing, it's about common ground. And that's what I'm trying to get to, is that we need to have common ground in the body of Christ. We have to know certain things. You can't compromise these beliefs. You cannot compromise the truth. One of the things that I believe is you can't compromise is that God is the truth, that God does not lie. And so with that in mind, if God is truth and the Bible is the word of God, then the word of God is the truth. And that's part of what I start every episode with: in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. So the Bible is Jesus, and Jesus is the Word, and the Word, it says, dwelt among us. So he came to life, and that's another thing that we need to talk about, is that it was a virgin birth. This birth of Jesus as the Lord and Savior of the world— this is God that came down from heaven. This is Father God tapping his Son Jesus on the shoulder and saying, "Hey, I need you to go down there now." And Jesus agreeing, he leaves heaven and comes to earth as a man. He goes from being a spirit or spiritual being with all the power that he had in heaven, and he came to earth as a baby. And not any baby, we're talking about the Son of God baby. And with that in mind, we've got to talk about the bloodline. And if you've listened to previous episodes, I have talked about this and I've touched on this, but from a standpoint of you and I coming together and believing this, I just want to let you know this is what I believe. This is what I believe you should believe. Without trying to make you or get you to believe something that goes against your standard. But the Bible has got to be the number one standard in your life. I just believe that. We cannot go based on War and Peace. We can't live our lives based on a dictionary. We have got to live our lives based on the Word of God. If we are going to be Christians, if we're going to walk through this life We have to have a proper roadmap. We have to know there is one standard and there is one truth. Now, as we dig in and as we get fully committed to this truth, it— we can get in there deeper and we can get nuances of what God shows you or what God shows me. That's the cool thing about God is that it says, if you'll draw near to me, I'll draw near to you. If you take the first step, God will come towards you. God has not left you. God said he'd never leave you nor forsake you, but he's not going to try to overpower you with his truth. If you look for the truth and you seek and keep seeking, you will find the answer. If you knock, the door will be open. If you ask, you will be answered. But you have to ask and keep asking. You got to seek and keep seeking. You got to knock and keep knocking. There is a truth truth that God is not in a hurry. God's timing is not the same as yours and my timing. He is not all wrapped up in this instant everything that you and I are living in. He has absolutely no care for the speed of what's going on in this world. He knows about it. There's not one thing in this world that catches God off guard. He knows that the world is going fast, and he knows that you and I need to figure out a way to slow down. And that's easier said than done, and I'm living proof that I have a struggle with this when I drive. And I've got no idea what that's even all about, but if I'm going from point A to point B, I want to get there quicker than most people get there. And that don't mean I want to speed, but I don't want to be hung up, and I don't have to stop randomly for stupid stuff. If there's a stop sign, I'm fine with that. And if there's traffic light, I would like to be for them to be in unison. I don't know about you, but traffic engineers wear me out. Sure seems like they could do a better job with all the technology and all the tools they have to synchronize lights and traffic flow. Come on, bring your game up a little bit. All right, back to our episode. See how just one thing can take me off on a tangent? That's why unity's not going to come by you and I sharing a traffic opinion. It is going to come from the Word of God, because you and I are different people. We have different lifestyles, we have different values, but our true core self should come from the Bible. If we are truly going to be sons and daughters of the living God, we have got to understand and we have got to immerse ourselves, in my opinion, in the word of God. And I think that's why we have disunity, or lack of unity, or whatever the word is that I'm trying to find. We are not one as the body of Christ because there's multiple people in the church that don't even read the Bible. And I can't hardly comprehend that. And I believe that is the number one reason why the body of Christ is disjointed. It is disconnected, and it's all, in my humble opinion, based on the love, or lack thereof, of God's Word. If you do not fall in love with the Word of God and dig into the Word of God, I do not believe you can have true unity in the body of Christ, because this is the only way you and I can come together as people. And that is by anchoring on one issue, and the issue has to be that the Bible is the Word of God, and that God is not a liar. Everything in that Bible is the truth, and you and I have got to figure out how and what it's saying. Well, I just looked up at my clock, and I saw that I have been on this thing for over 8 minutes. And I still have not given you a scripture, and that is horrible. So here's your scripture. Psalms 19:7. The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. 7 The judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether: more to be desired are they than gold, yes, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. 8 Moreover by them is your servant warned: and in keeping of them there is good reward. 9 Who can understand his errors? Cleanse you me from secret faults. 10 Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins: let them not have dominion over me. Then I shall be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression. Now that's a mouthful, and I know I have superior reading skills. You don't have to write in and tell me. This is just talking about the law of the Lord. This is what the psalmist— I believe this was David— declaring that the Bible, the law of the Lord, the Torah, back in the day when David wrote this The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. And again, I go back to 1 Corinthians 1:26-29 where it talks about my calling, and it says, you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things that are mighty, and the base things and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to put to shame the things that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence. That was by memory. I put that into my soul because That is why God called you and I. God has chosen the foolish things and what the world declares foolish. Think about how the world sees the Bible, and if that does not mean foolishness to most people, I don't know what is. They're clinging to their guns and their Bibles is what President Obama said. And really, I mean, why would anybody even say that? And he was supposed to be— and I'm putting on air quotes— he's supposed to be a Christian. And why would anybody make fun— if you're a Christian, I would never make fun of you grabbing a hold of your Bible and putting— anchoring your world on your Bible. That's exactly what I'm encouraging you to do. I'm encouraging you to put that anchor in your life. You have got to have your life set on a strong anchor. You have got to be anchored to something. And why would you be anchored to something that's just floating around and changing The Word of God does not change. It will never go away. Jesus said, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but his word will not." And I know that's probably not the exact quote, but it's pretty close. Jesus said the Word of God is not ever going to fail. And I just want to encourage you, if we're going to have unity in the body of Christ, It is gonna have to be based on the Word of God, and it is gonna have to be based on 3 or 4 specific areas everybody should agree to. And I'm gonna stop right there. The next episode, I'm gonna kind of go off on a tangent because it's gonna be Thanksgiving Thursday here in America, and I just want to give kind of a Thanksgiving episode. I'm gonna publish it on Thanksgiving. I just want to remind you that is the coolest and by far my favorite holiday of the year.

Let's pray.

God, I thank you so much for your word. I thank you for your consistency. God, I thank you for the love that you have, that you sent your son to die for me. God, I thank you so much. I thank you that you sent your son to die for this listener, and I pray in Jesus' name that this person has accepted you as their Lord and Savior. God, we thank you for the unity that comes only from knowing you and being closer to you. Lord, the closer we get to you, the more we become like you, and the more your body becomes one. God, help us to be more like you. Lord, we thank you, we love you. We ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thank you for being a part of this, and I look forward to visiting with you in the next episode.

Thanks for listening to the No Doubt, No Fear, Only Only Believe podcast at www.nodoubtonlybelieve.com.