Charisa Stories

Tag: unity in christ

  • Division Impacts The Power Of The Gospel

    My head explodes when I allow myself to wade into the political discourse between followers of Jesus Christ on Facebook, X, and other social media. There are important cultural issues that Christians need to prayerfully and gracefully seek God’s wisdom to address. What I read is rarely graceful and that makes me wonder how prayerful the messengers have been before hitting the send button. What gives you the right to judge the faith status of another believer because you disagree with them? I was wrong about many political things in my life but I did believe in Jesus (in spite of what some critics thought) and God patiently changed my heart.

    Because of the nature of social media a topic that should be thoughtfully debated instead becomes an us versus them. I can assure you that no one’s mind is changed by a name calling rant. If fact, that person is more likely to dig in even deeper to what may be incorrect opinions because of your unkind comments.

    These judgements of motives and personal attacks are so damaging to the message of grace that I hold so dear. Sometimes I try to imagine myself as a skeptical seeker looking to explore this Christianity thing. I am pretty sure if I stumbled on some of these mean-spirited threads I would run straight for the secular hills.

    The irony of this need to “win” the argument at the expense of Christian charity and love may be one more profoundly effective tactic of the enemy. The moment the Church is divided by culture instead of united in Christ is the moment our light for the message of the Gospel dims. Paul noted that God’s sovereignty can take any proclamation of the Gospel and use it for His glory.

    “It’s true that some are preaching out of jealousy and rivalry. But others preach about Christ with pure motives. 16 They preach because they love me, for they know I have been appointed to defend the Good News. 17 Those others do not have pure motives as they preach about Christ. They preach with selfish ambition, not sincerely, intending to make my chains more painful to me. 18 But that doesn’t matter. Whether their motives are false or genuine, the message about Christ is being preached either way, so I rejoice. And I will continue to rejoice.” (Phillipians 1:15-18)

    I hope that most followers of Jesus wish to communicate the incredibly liberating forgiveness of the Gospel. I hope that most of us wish to be accurate in that communication. But I also hope that most of us wish to be gracious, kind, loving, and thoughtful toward all in the body who desire to celebrate Jesus. 

    When asked what the most important commandment was Jesus replied without hesitation.

    “And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.”

    And he added a second part…”Be accurate and angrily make sure others are accurate at all costs.”

    Hardly.

    His convicting command is well known.

    “The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. No other commandment is greater than these.” 

    Don’t hijack my point. Accuracy is important but you cannot love your neighbor as yourself by condescension, assigning of bad motives, and smug righteousness. 

    I wish followers of Jesus would proclaim what we are FOR more passionately than what we are against. What if we decided to spend all of our energy proclaiming that the Son of God came to earth as a human, lived a sinless life, was crucified as a sacrifice for my sin and yours and then was resurrected to show the ultimate victory over sin and death?

    What if we decided to be a little kinder, give a little more, serve a little more often, and commit to unity in our ranks?

    My concern is that the lack of unity is the single biggest problem in the universal church and, of course, in our individual fellowships. There is no more powerful community than a group of believers who live in unity. Nothing levels the playing field like genuinely following Jesus. 

    Famous preacher D.L. Moody had this warning. “I have never yet known the Spirit of God to work where the Lord’s people were divided.”

    The One that unites us is so much more important than the things that divide us. Can we commit to encountering others in grace based on our unity in Jesus Christ? 
    The choice is ours.

  • Can A Divided Body Of Christ Change The World?

    My head explodes when I allow myself to wade into the political discourse between followers of Jesus Christ on Facebook, X, and other social media. There are important cultural issues that Christians need to prayerfully and gracefully seek God’s wisdom to address. What I read is rarely graceful and that makes me wonder how prayerful the messengers have been before hitting the send button. What gives you the right to judge the faith status of another believer because you disagree with them? I was wrong about many political things in my life but I did believe in Jesus (in spite of what some critics thought) and God patiently changed my heart.

    Because of the nature of social media a topic that should be thoughtfully debated instead becomes an us versus them. I can assure you that no one’s mind is changed by a name calling rant. If fact, that person is more likely to dig in even deeper to what may be incorrect opinions because of your unkind comments.

    These judgements of motives and personal attacks are so damaging to the message of grace that I hold so dear. Sometimes I try to imagine myself as a skeptical seeker looking to explore this Christianity thing. I am pretty sure if I stumbled on some of these mean-spirited threads I would run straight for the secular hills.

    The irony of this need to “win” the argument at the expense of Christian charity and love may be one more profoundly effective tactic of the enemy. The moment the Church is divided by culture instead of united in Christ is the moment our light for the message of the Gospel dims. Paul noted that God’s sovereignty can take any proclamation of the Gospel and use it for His glory.

    “It’s true that some are preaching out of jealousy and rivalry. But others preach about Christ with pure motives. 16 They preach because they love me, for they know I have been appointed to defend the Good News. 17 Those others do not have pure motives as they preach about Christ. They preach with selfish ambition, not sincerely, intending to make my chains more painful to me. 18 But that doesn’t matter. Whether their motives are false or genuine, the message about Christ is being preached either way, so I rejoice. And I will continue to rejoice.” (Phillipians 1:15-18)

    I hope that most followers of Jesus wish to communicate the incredibly liberating forgiveness of the Gospel. I hope that most of us wish to be accurate in that communication. But I also hope that most of us wish to be gracious, kind, loving, and thoughtful toward all in the body who desire to celebrate Jesus. 

    When asked what the most important commandment was Jesus replied without hesitation.

    “And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.”

    And he added a second part…”Be accurate and angrily make sure others are accurate at all costs.”

    Hardly.

    His convicting command is well known.

    “The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. No other commandment is greater than these.” 

    Don’t hijack my point. Accuracy is important but you cannot love your neighbor as yourself by condescension, assigning of bad motives, and smug righteousness. 

    I wish followers of Jesus would proclaim what we are FOR more passionately than what we are against. What if we decided to spend all of our energy proclaiming that the Son of God came to earth as a human, lived a sinless life, was crucified as a sacrifice for my sin and yours and then was resurrected to show the ultimate victory over sin and death?

    What if we decided to be a little kinder, give a little more, serve a little more often, and commit to unity in our ranks?

    My concern is that the lack of unity is the single biggest problem in the universal church and, of course, in our individual fellowships. There is no more powerful community than a group of believers who live in unity. Nothing levels the playing field like genuinely following Jesus. 

    Famous preacher D.L. Moody had this warning. “I have never yet known the Spirit of God to work where the Lord’s people were divided.”

    The One that unites us is so much more important than the things that divide us. Can we commit to encountering others in grace based on our unity in Jesus Christ?
    The choice is ours.

  • A Wartime Miracle Spawned From a Silent Night

    One of my favorite Christmas stories happened during the horrors of war. The Christmas carol “Silent Night” was actually responsible for a wartime Christmas truce.

    The year was 1914 and soldiers were having to spend Christmas Eve night on the World War I battlefields of Belgium. After only four months of fighting, more than a million men had already perished in the bloody conflict. The bodies of dead soldiers were scattered between the trenches. Enemy troops were dug-in so close that they could easily exchange shouts.

    On December 24, 1914, in the middle of a freezing battlefield in France, a miracle happened. The British troops watched in amazement as candle-lit Christmas trees began to appear above the German trenches. The glowing trees soon appeared along the length of the German front.

    Henry Williamson, a young soldier with the London Regiment wrote in his diary: “From the German parapet, a rich baritone voice had begun to sing a song I remembered my German nurse singing to me…. The grave and tender voice rose out of the frozen mist. It was all so strange… like being in another world — to which one had come through a nightmare.”

    Silent Night
    Holy Night
    All is calm
    All is quiet

    “They finished their carol and we thought that we ought to retaliate,” another British soldier wrote, “So we sang “The First Noël” and when we finished, they all began clapping. And they struck up “O Tannebaum” and on it went… until we started up “O Come All Ye Faithful” [and] the Germans immediately joined in …. this was really a most extraordinary thing — two nations both singing the same carol in the middle of a war.”

    Christmas truce

    It is recorded that enemy soldiers greeted each other in the no man’s land that was a killing zone the day before. The soldiers wished each other Merry Christmas and agreed not to fire their rifles on Christmas Day. The spontaneous cease-fire eventually embraced much of a 500-mile stretch of the Western Front. According to the reports of soldiers at the scene, thousands of soldiers celebrated the birth of the Prince of Peace among the bodies of their dead.

    Christmas truce

    Other soldiers told of how the “enemies” exchanged badges and buttons from their uniforms. Others shared photos of wives and children and some even exchanged addresses and promised to write after the war ended.

    But the miracle of peace was temporary. Slowly, under threats from their officers, the troops returned to the trenches and the recoils of rifles split the temporary “Silent Night.” Some soldiers admitted aiming so their bullets flew well above the heads of the “enemy.”

    Perhaps those of us who celebrate the birth of the Savior could learn a lesson from this Christmas miracle as we engage those who do not share our beliefs and faith in Jesus. Those on the other side of the cultural trenches are not unlike us. The message delivered in Bethlehem was peace and goodwill toward all men. When we fight the cultural war we need to remember that the whole purpose of Jesus invading our space and time was to love and ultimately die for those on both sides of the battle. During the recent Army/Navy football game I was deeply moved by this observation.

    “This is only game where everyone on the field is willing to die for everyone watching them play”

    Jesus was willing and did die for everyone on both sides of our cultural trenches and ugly personal warfare. Perhaps the biggest miracle of that Silent Night was how the power of a unified focus on Jesus can unite even bitter enemies. My heart aches as I see Christians splitting ranks over things that don’t amount to a hill of beans on an eternal scale. I picture Jesus weeping over the churches of America like He wept over Jerusalem. I picture Him weeping over how Christians in this country divide over non-essentials and fail to communicate the joy and life-changing power of the good news of the gospel. Jesus gave this final command to His followers…

    “So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”
    John 13:34-35 – NLT

    Pretty straight forward. Nothing in there about personal gain, power, or prestige. The power of what happened on that Silent Night united enemies centuries later on a French battlefield.  My Christmas prayer is that the miracle of God becoming man will unite you and me, His followers, to seek what actually matters. To really make it about Christ and not about us. And do it while we still have the chance.

  • Want a Healthy Community? Focus on the Last Five Letters of the Word.

    One of the 7 Core Values of my church is Community. I was blessed to speak on that value this week at Waterbrook Bible Fellowship. Here is the statement about Community from our church website.

    Genuine biblical community means living in caring relationships that are guided by biblical truth and grounded in spiritual accountability. We value real community, and yes, we know how messy and hard it is. But, we also know that real and lasting life-change—spiritual transformation—primarily occurs in the unity and diversity of authentic relationships.

    Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus about living in community in the power of the Spirit. Note that he wrote these caring words while in jail for the “crime” of serving the Lord. His heart for his people overshadowed his difficult circumstance.

    Therefore I, a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God. 2 Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. 3 Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace. 4 For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future. 5 There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all, in all, and living through all. (Ephesians 4:1-6 NLT)

    We have been called by God to be humble, gentle, patient, and forgiving of each other’s faults because of love. Then Paul reminds us that the Lord is our source of unity.

    Community is a basic human need. Howard Schultz, Starbucks chairman and CEO, saw that need. When he joined Starbucks, he wanted to create a place for human connection, conversation, and one that fostered a sense of ­community – a third place between work and home. That was the genesis of one of the most successful business models in history.

    One of the places that used to be the third place between work and home was the church. For many, it still is a community that matters, but sadly for some, church is a place that has lost its appeal. Why did that happen?

    The church shares some of the blame for not aggressively proclaiming the amazing nature of grace. We allowed the proclamation of what we are against to be the face of the church instead of the Gospel message that gives us hope. We talked about the repulsiveness of sin instead of the forgiveness of sin that leads to peace and joy.

    We have somehow proffered the narrative that church requires individuals to undergo a begrudging moral cleanup to be worthy of inclusion in our club. The attractiveness of the church should be that you don’t have to shape up and you don’t have to clean up. We just want you to show up and learn about the redemptive power of the Gospel.

    All of us want a place where we are accepted. We are designed for community, and the church needs to realize that it must be a place of teaching and honest reproach but, perhaps more importantly, a place of refuge, grace, and safety. A walk-in clinic for messy seekers and messy Christians. The truth is that all of us are messy. If many people honestly relayed the condition of their souls, as soon as they walked in the door, they would be triaged with a code blue of love, concern, and prayer.

    The writer of Hebrews encourages us to lean fully into God’s love, and from that base we can love others.

    24 Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. 25 And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near. (Hebrews 10:24-25, NLT)

    The concept of thinking of ways to motivate others to acts of love and good works is wonderful. But just thinking about it isn’t enough. We have to come together in community for it to work effectively. And nothing should level the playing field like embracing the teachings of Jesus. He cares not a whit about color, status, resume, income, or appearance. Jesus looks only on the heart. Would Jesus hear the ugly words of a hurting person or the desperate tone of their need? Would He condemn the sin or embrace the sinner and whisper gently in their ear that there is a better way? Of course, there are consequences to sin, made ever more clear when we turn on the news every day. But the truth is that all of us are sinners. We need to share the hope and joy of living in Christ.

    Building a loving and grace filled community is also based on this important truth.

    Loving everyone who enters our doors does not mean we accept all their behavior.

    May I repeat that?

    Loving everyone who enters our doors does not mean we accept all their behavior.

    The Jesus Revolution began when people involved in all kinds of wrong behavior were accepted, loved, and taught the Gospel. From that came the biggest revival of my lifetime.

    Paul wrote about the need for unity.

    I appeal to you, dear brothers and sisters, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, to live in harmony with each other. Let there be no divisions in the church. Rather, be of one mind, united in thought and purpose. (1 Corinthians 1:10, NLT)

    We need to be unified in Christ. You can’t spell Community without unity. I am grateful that Scripture recognizes our need for one another on this journey. Share your journey with your brothers and sisters in Christian community. I know that some have tried and been wounded. Some have tried and been ignored. I have been there too. I encourage you (make that plead with you) to not give up. Pray for those connections. We are created to live in community and it isn’t easy. Worthwhile endeavors rarely are.

    You can hear the entire message on Community by clicking here.