February 28, 2020
When there are dissensions, and jealousies, and evil speakings among professors of religion, then there is great need of a revival. These things show that Christians have got far from God, and it is time to think earnestly of a revival.
Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow. So one hundred worshipers [meeting] together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be, were they to become ‘unity’ conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship.
Nowhere is there a love that overcomes the barriers of death, sin, captivity, separation, fear, alienation, and purposelessness except at the Cross. There is hope for racial reconciliation, for peace between the sexes, for ethnic harmony, and for healing when we rally around a common identity in Christ, love him as our Redeemer, and serve his Kingdom.
The tapestry of worship is formed by the various threads of conversation that occur in interweaving fashion: God’s Word being communicated to the gathered community (both individually and corporately), worshipers responding to God under the prompting of God’s Spirit, and those same worshipers sharing with each other their understandings of their faith commitments and of the ways in which God is at work in their lives.
A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers.
The enemy knows how easy prey is when walking alone. Rather, when we move as a singular unit there is a collective power to not only intimidate the enemy but to provide us a refuge. Of course, we already know this, yet we often lose sight of it.
It is interesting to note that unity is the result of the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives. In fact, it is called, “the unity of the Spirit” in Ephesians 4:3. It’s His. We are called to “preserve” this unity, not create it. It already exists wherever He has influence. And if it’s not present, we’ve left His influence out of the equation.
We’ll never build unity around unity, but we can build it around Jesus.
Snowflakes are one of nature’s most fragile things, but just look what they can do when they stick together.
Where the Spirit of God is, there is also singing. The early church was characterized by its singing; so also in every generation where there is renewal by the Spirit a new hymnody breaks forth. If most such songs do not have staying power, some of them do, and these become the treasure-trove of our ongoing teaching and admonishing of one another, as well as of our constantly turning to God the Father and God the Son and offering praise by inspiration of the Holy Spirit.