Many walls divide Christians -- church walls, doctrinal walls, pride walls, racial walls, organizational walls. However, Jesus wants us to be one. Are we failing at unity?
Recently, while speaking at the 75th annual convention of National Religious Broadcasters, Rick Warren (author of The Purpose Driven Life) said: “There's a theme in Scripture that the church often ignores and that is that God wants His children to get along . . . Friends, we’re failing at unity. The church is more divided, more polarized, there are more tribes, and more splattered, more fractured, than ever before.”
Warren went on to say: “They were in one place, they were of one accord, they were of one heart, they had one purpose, they had one vision …When we have the unity of Acts, we’ll have the power of Acts. We’re just not willing to pay the price for Pentecost. We’re not willing to set aside our petty differences and unify around one thing: the Lord Jesus Christ.”
He also said: "Revival in America will never happen unless the church is willing to address and fight racial prejudice," which he called the "most common" sin in the world.
He even talked about Billy Graham's example of unity. Warren said: "Not only did Billy Graham insist all of his crusades be integrated with every kind of ethnic background, he also sat everyone at the table. He took Catholics and Orthodox and fundamentals and evangelicals and Calvinists and charismatics, and he put them all on the stage."
Perhaps we need to do more than talk about unity. Maybe it is time to tear down the walls between Christians. So how can we do that?
Take a first step toward tearing down the walls that prevent unity in the body of Christ. Read a practical handbook on Christian unity. Search the web for ONE: Unfolding God's Eternal Purpose From House To House.
