We commit to grow our habits when we live in agreement with other disciples. This devotional reading, written by Pastor Steve, looks at committing to be in agreement with like-minded believers in the church.
Nuggets
- We aren’t sinning when we disagree with each other, necessarily.
- Paul knew that it was imperative for success in any ministry for us to have and be of like minds.
- There are many different church denominations.
- To be fruitful for God, we must be operating from the same mindedness and agree with each other and COMMIT to doing so.
- For us to be godly in all that we are doing for Him, we must commit to follow him in all that we do.
- The only way that we can possibly do all for the glory of God and mean it is to abide in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.
In our walk with our Lord Jesus, it is necessary for us to commit to being or doing things, for us to be fruitful in our ministries together.
That is not to say that we are not allowed to disagree. That is not possible, because we are all humans who have different thoughts about certain things.
How something should be done; the color of the new carpet for the sanctuary in our church and lots of other things.
Let's Put It into Context
Devotions in the Pastor Steve’s Sermons series
Be Careful When You Disagree
"for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God" (Jas. 1: 20 ESV)
We aren’t sinning when we disagree with each other, necessarily.
That is unless we allow the disagreement to build into discontent, causing anger to flare and causing church splits, friend splits and so on. Then we must be careful how we react and keep the disagreement to a Godly context.
The Book of James tells us: “for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (Jas. 1: 20 ESV). When we have our minds set on being angry for one reason or another, we cannot possibly accomplish what God has for us to do.
This is why, I believe, that the Apostle Paul asked this of the Philippians in his Epistle to them when he said:
‘So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus’ (Phil. 2: 1-5 ESV).
There Is a Reason Paul Said This
Paul knew that it was imperative for success in any ministry for us to have and be of like minds.
Like-mindedness means having similar or same opinions. In the sense of Christian spirituality, it means that we agree about interpretations of the Bible, ways of worship, and so on.
For us to be of like-mindedness, as a group of individuals, we must commit ourselves to it.
Too Many Differences of Opinion Is not Good
There are many different church denominations.
In many cases, one denomination started because they split off another due to a disagreement about Biblical interpretation or some other aspect of what they believe makes one church more correct than the one they split off from.
On one hand, it makes sense to do that. When a church has a disagreement of some sort that cannot be settled, they should split and form another group of believers, for the sake of harmony and being fruitful to God’s calling. I could go into the matter of whether the split resulted from sinful accusations, etc., but for the purpose of this post, I am going to assume that the split was decided amicably and proceeded with doing so.
That said, however, there are roughly 200 different denominations in the United States alone and roughly 45,000 different denominations in the entire world. Perhaps there are smarter people than me who know the answers to this, but I find it very hard to believe that there are 45,000 different opinions on aspects of Bible interpretation, worship, and so on. Most likely, these differences are man-made opinions that are not at all in agreement with what God wants to have. For me, that’s much easier to believe.
What It Takes to be Fruitful
To be fruitful for God, we must be operating from the same mindedness and agree with each other and COMMIT to doing so.
There is usually at least one person within any given congregation that does not agree with anything the church of which that this person is a member. This person will often cause a great deal of discontent and try to get other members of the church to also follow with what they disagree.
It makes more sense that if a person cannot agree to be a part of what a church is doing, then they should go find a church that they can be in like-mindedness with and commit to being a part of that church. Instead, however, they choose to stay where they are and be a willing instrument of the devil by causing discontent with that body of believers and allow him to attempt to thwart what God is doing in that church.
Why We Must Commit to Him
For us to be godly in all that we are doing for Him, we must commit to follow him in all that we do.
One of the first things that we need to keep in mind is that when we are doing ministry, we are not doing it for ourselves. We are doing it for God’s glory.
First Corinthians 10:31 tells us, “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (ESV).
We Must Abide in Christ
The only way that we can possibly do all for the glory of God and mean it is to abide in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus said, “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me” (Jn. 15: 4 ESV).
The Biblical definition of abide means to remain or to stay. For us to get what we need from Jesus to serve Him, we must STAY in Him.
How do we do that? We commit our lives and everything we do it Him. That is a part of our purpose in this life.
- “Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act” (Ps. 37: 5 ESV).
- “Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established” (Prov. 16: 3 ESV).
Jesus had so much to say about abiding in Him in John 15. I highly recommend you take the time to study this chapter of John … meditate on it, chew on it and pray about it. You will be amazed at what Jesus has to say about abiding.
I do want to point out one more verse from John 15 to make a point.
Jesus said, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (Jn. 15: 5 ESV).
This is one of my favorite passages of Scripture, and I quote this more often than I realize, I’m sure. But there is a lot of truth here.
We literally cannot do anything apart from Jesus. You may be wondering what I mean. Well, here’s why I believe it is a very literal verse.
In the book of Acts, when Paul was speaking to the Aeropagus, he quoted a Greek poem that says, “… ‘In him we live and move and have our being’ …” (Ac. 17: 28 ESV). The Biblical truth to that is so amazing.
If God took His hand off us and this world for even one second, we would literally fall apart.
The book of Philippians says, “for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2: 13 ESV). Everything we can do is because God allows us to do so, according to His will, because it gives God pleasure to do so.
What Does This Have to Do with Agreement?
You may be thinking at this point, “great, but what does any of this have to do with agreement?” One of the definitions of agree is “to consent to do something that has been suggested by another person.”
It’s true that God doesn’t call His commandments “suggestions,” though many people tend to follow them as if they were. And He does give us a freewill to do whatever we want.
However, for a person to finally decide to surrender their life to God and do things His way is indeed an agreement that has been made.
We say, “I surrender my life to you Lord and will let you have control of my life.” This surrender that we do is a willful agreement with God to accept His Will for us, and we follow Him accordingly.
When we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, it is all too often that we end up thinking that is it. That is all we must do, and we are good.
The thing we tend to overlook or ignore is what Jesus said in Matthew 16: 24. He said, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me” (Mt. 16: 24 NLT).
You see, when we surrender our lives to God, we give up the right to do everything we want to do with our lives. We give our lives up to our own ways and follow God’s ways.
That’s what it means to be faithful and devoted to our God. When we say, “Yes, Lord!” we cannot only mean, yes when it is in our own way.
To do so is to be out of God’s Will for our lives; and in being there, we will never be truly happy without being submitted to His will.
In a very real sense, when we give our lives to the Lord, we agree with Him, that His way is better than ours. We agree with all that He wants to do with us, even if we don’t have any idea what’s next.
We are surrendering ourselves by being obedient to His call. Let us be ever mindful about this in all we that.
Lord, help us all be obedient to Your Will for our lives and agree with You in all that You want for us. Amen.
What do you think?
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