Several years ago a friend of mine shared this devotional with me. Lorie and I had been friends for a few years our children are the same age and we were at the time attending a Mom's Time Out Group. I was raised in an Angican Christian home, and became Catholic after my husband and I were married, but Anglican or Catholic I have been a Christian for a long time. Lorie and her husband attended the Evangelical Free Church in our small town. We didn't always have the same frame of reference due to different doctrinal presentation through our churches, but we always respected each other and learned from each other's different experience of our same God.
COMING TOGETHER - devotional by Kenneth Copeland
If you know how to listen to the voice of God, you can hear Him calling throughout the Body of Christ today. He is calling for unity. He is calling us to lay down our disagreements and come together in preparation for Jesus' return.
Just the thought of that scares some believers. "How can I unify with someone from another denomination?"they say. "I'm not going to give up my doctrines and agree with theirs just for unity's sake!"
What they don't realize is this: Scriptural unity isn't based on doctrine.
Winds of doctrine, according to Ephesians 4:14, are childish. Winds of doctrine don't unify. They divide and blow people in every direction. The Word doesn't say anything about us coming into the unity of our doctrines. It says we'll come into the unity of the faith.
In the past we have failed to understand that and tried to demand doctrinal unity from each other anyway.
"If you don't agree with me on the issue of tongues," we've said, "or the timing of the rapture...or on the proper depth for baptismal water, I won't accept you as a brother in the Lord. I'll break fellowship with you."
But that's not God's way of doing things. He doesn't have a long list of doctrinal demands for us to meet. His requirements are simple. Fist John 3:23 tells us what they are: to believe on the Name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another.
Once you and I come to a place where we keep those requirements and quit worrying about the rest, we'll be able to forget our denominational squabbles and come together in the unity of the faith. We'll grow so strong together that the winds of doctrine won't be able to drive us apart.
When that happens, the devil's going to panic because the unity of the faith of God's people is a staggering thing. It's the most unlimited, powerful thing on earth.
Right now all over the world, the Spirit is calling the Church of the living God to unite. Hear Him and obey, and you can be a part of one of the most magnificent moves of God this world has ever seen.
We are one in faith,
Shirley Berthelet