Former location of "The Kingdom of the Heavens" blog, written by an incurable fool who is trying to become a holy fool!
Our disunity also leaves us vulnerable to exploitation by false teachers and their distorted religious teachings, with which they seek to win a personal following for their own gratification or profit. proper recognition of the oneness of the Body, and of the importance of living in oneness, protects against divisive people.
God’s pattern shown in the Early Church was to provide for the needs of its members through its unity. In unity, we regard ourselves and everything we own as God’s, and give unselfishly to the needs of others, as he directs us. This gives the world a picture of God himself.
Our peace, joy and effectiveness are dependent on our unity as shown by forgiveness and the resolution of offenses between us, God takes division and unforgiveness so seriously because it damages all parties to the offense and limits the Body of Christ. When we neglect this, we are given over to the tormentors–guilt, fear, anxiety and mental illness.
How a dream about the word “dirge” led me to recognize two of the major problems of modern Western churches: our insistence on hiding problems to preserve our “witness” rather than dealing with them in the Spirit (hypocrisy) and our one-way, “fact”-intensive teaching style.
Discipline or Correction, Emotions, End of the Churched Society, God Speaks to Us, Heresy, Historical Background, Human Rationality, Illness as a Consequence, In the Church, Meaning of Unity, Our Oneness in Christ book revision, Purpose of the Church, Restoration of God's Image, Restoration of our Relationships, The place of visions, Through others, Through the church, To live in unity