Who's the smartest?
2 Chronicles 30:12 Also in Judah the hand of God was on the people to give them unity of mind to carry out what the king and his officials had ordered, following the word of the Lord.
A major corporation conducted a study on the flight of geese. In their study they found that geese fly in a "V" formation with one goose in the lead. After a period of time, this goose relinquishes the lead to another goose. During flight they noticed head movements of the leader that seem to give signals to the other geese flying, perhaps to let the others know how he was doing. They estimate that the formation flight pattern reduces wind drag due to the lift the other birds receive and believe it increases their performance by up to 70 percent. Whenever one goose drops out, another goes with it. These two geese do not catch up to the original pack, but join another group later.
Doesn't this sound so much like the church today? I was raised in an Assembly of God Church until I reached my teens and decided I no longer needed Jesus. After a few years in the Marine Corps, and a few more years in the bottle, I became the Prodigal son and returned to Jesus and His church. But things had changed since I had left the body of Christ years earlier. It seemed that while I was away from the Church, a new revolution had started among the denominations. It was the, I'm right and you're wrong revolution, and it was, and still is getting stronger every day.
Yesterday I wrote about how 71 percent of the nation believes in God, but the secular 29 percent are stripping us of our rights. Today I say it's because the Body of Christ is so busy bickering about the who's right and who's wrong theology that the enemy is finding it easy to beat us. A Pastor friend of mine used to respond to minor theological differences by asking the question, "what does it have to do with my salvation?" What a question. We need to stop this bickering about things that make no difference in our salvation, and join forces to spread the Word of God.
I remember when I decided to return to the church, I had no idea which one to go to. I sat down one night and cracked open the yellow pages of our town to see what church I would go to. Wow, was I surprised. When I opened the phone book of our small town, I saw so many churches, that I had no idea which one to go to. I remembered from my earlier years in the church that I needed to go to one that worshiped Christ, but I soon discovered that most of the churches had the name Jesus in their name. Well surely I could pick one of those and be safe, right? Wrong! I came very close to going to a LDS church because it had the name of Jesus in it's title. My point being that the church Jesus had in mind has split in so many directions today that it confuses the very people we are supposed to be reaching out to. How can we look appealing to the lost if we are bickering over the different ways we worship the very God that we love? How many people are we losing for Jesus because of our lack of unity? Maybe the geese are smarter than we are.
I think that we should remember our place in the Bible. Jesus is the Shepard, and we are the sheep. We would be wise to follow the example of the "dumb" animals if we want to make the church stronger. Consider these examples:
*Lions in Africa will follow a herd of zebras and try to split them up into many smaller herds because they know that when the zebras are all in one herd, they will repel any attacks the lions can spring on them. This is what's happening in the church today. Satan is using our pride and arrogance to split the church up so it will eventually fall. And when it falls, then the Word of Jesus will be replaced with the word of the koran.
*We need to become like the geese from the report I mentioned at the first part of today's blog. We need to stick together. When a church is having problems, we need to be able to come along side of it unified in the name of Jesus and pick it up, not watch it split and start a new denomination.
As I read more about the beautiful animals that God created, I guess I envy them in a way. Their blind faith gives them the ability to survive and grow stronger. They don't split over pride, they stick togehter for the good of the herd. The church could learn a lot from their example. It makes me wonder who's really the smartest.
Praying for unity among the Church,
Pastor Mike
A major corporation conducted a study on the flight of geese. In their study they found that geese fly in a "V" formation with one goose in the lead. After a period of time, this goose relinquishes the lead to another goose. During flight they noticed head movements of the leader that seem to give signals to the other geese flying, perhaps to let the others know how he was doing. They estimate that the formation flight pattern reduces wind drag due to the lift the other birds receive and believe it increases their performance by up to 70 percent. Whenever one goose drops out, another goes with it. These two geese do not catch up to the original pack, but join another group later.
Doesn't this sound so much like the church today? I was raised in an Assembly of God Church until I reached my teens and decided I no longer needed Jesus. After a few years in the Marine Corps, and a few more years in the bottle, I became the Prodigal son and returned to Jesus and His church. But things had changed since I had left the body of Christ years earlier. It seemed that while I was away from the Church, a new revolution had started among the denominations. It was the, I'm right and you're wrong revolution, and it was, and still is getting stronger every day.
Yesterday I wrote about how 71 percent of the nation believes in God, but the secular 29 percent are stripping us of our rights. Today I say it's because the Body of Christ is so busy bickering about the who's right and who's wrong theology that the enemy is finding it easy to beat us. A Pastor friend of mine used to respond to minor theological differences by asking the question, "what does it have to do with my salvation?" What a question. We need to stop this bickering about things that make no difference in our salvation, and join forces to spread the Word of God.
I remember when I decided to return to the church, I had no idea which one to go to. I sat down one night and cracked open the yellow pages of our town to see what church I would go to. Wow, was I surprised. When I opened the phone book of our small town, I saw so many churches, that I had no idea which one to go to. I remembered from my earlier years in the church that I needed to go to one that worshiped Christ, but I soon discovered that most of the churches had the name Jesus in their name. Well surely I could pick one of those and be safe, right? Wrong! I came very close to going to a LDS church because it had the name of Jesus in it's title. My point being that the church Jesus had in mind has split in so many directions today that it confuses the very people we are supposed to be reaching out to. How can we look appealing to the lost if we are bickering over the different ways we worship the very God that we love? How many people are we losing for Jesus because of our lack of unity? Maybe the geese are smarter than we are.
I think that we should remember our place in the Bible. Jesus is the Shepard, and we are the sheep. We would be wise to follow the example of the "dumb" animals if we want to make the church stronger. Consider these examples:
*Lions in Africa will follow a herd of zebras and try to split them up into many smaller herds because they know that when the zebras are all in one herd, they will repel any attacks the lions can spring on them. This is what's happening in the church today. Satan is using our pride and arrogance to split the church up so it will eventually fall. And when it falls, then the Word of Jesus will be replaced with the word of the koran.
*We need to become like the geese from the report I mentioned at the first part of today's blog. We need to stick together. When a church is having problems, we need to be able to come along side of it unified in the name of Jesus and pick it up, not watch it split and start a new denomination.
As I read more about the beautiful animals that God created, I guess I envy them in a way. Their blind faith gives them the ability to survive and grow stronger. They don't split over pride, they stick togehter for the good of the herd. The church could learn a lot from their example. It makes me wonder who's really the smartest.
Praying for unity among the Church,
Pastor Mike
posted by Mike Sanderson @ 11:00 AM
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