Dale:
God has a tremendous promise for us to walk into, and that's His oneness. And one of the scriptures that really lights up in my heart is 1 Corinthians 12: 13. "For by one Spirit, we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free and we're all made to drink of one Spirit."
His oneness includes us all. Nobody is excluded from this: hence the word oneness . That one scripture brings down every form of division that we face. It's all inclusive. The Spirit that we have, "for by one spirit we were all baptized." That opens the door to a walk with God that's complete. No one is left out.
I love God's inclusiveness. It's all one Spirit. Well, I believe this, and I believe that. Maybe along the line, we've picked up some things that we need to consider dropping. And that's where the Spirit comes in, because it's not a collection of your ideas. It's the impartation of the Holy Spirit with Father, and His ideas.
Ken:
Oneness is not a human ability. A oneness that we're talking about is oneness of Spirit. It's our spirits being one. We may not have the same ideas, and thoughts and things. When we're one in the Spirit, which is what we've been brought into in Christ . Then we can hear in the Spirit, and we can absolutely drop something that we thought was right. We don't have to accept every thought that comes to our mind. We have to hold it before the Lord and let the Lord show us by revelation. And this is where the oneness of the Spirit really does come into action.
Ron:
In that train of thought. When I'm with a group of people, group of Christians, and we're discussing things, we find that we don't agree on things.
If I am standing in the oneness of Spirit with the Lord, then the things that I would not agree with, I wouldn't have to fight over, prove my point. Because if I'm with people that love the Lord also then there is a oneness that I'm actually commanded to maintain by the scripture. "Be diligent to preserve the the oneness of Spirit in the bond of peace ." That's the scripture, you can't deny that. In that atmosphere of I'll call it debate. You can have a healthy debate spiritually without contention. (Right) if everyone there is Is able to state their, their beliefs, but don't push their beliefs on others. Don't try to push your belief. Don't try to prove your belief to others. But you're stating it, and then you just hold it. And if they do the same and everybody is being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, and your, your main priority is that oneness, that unity. And not being right about a doctrine or about, about whatever you're talking about, then you can have disagreement without division.
Ken:
You don't have to be right. You just hold that in your spirit. I don't have to defend what, what the Lord is showing me, whether it's right or wrong. I can lay that before the Lord and He can show me the truth - by the Spirit . But we don't have to be contentious. We don't have to be debating each other in the sense of trying to prove something because there's no end to that. When you lay it before the Lord, and you're looking answers from Him, not, you know, not from your own way of thinking.
Your carnal mind is never going to give you the right answer. So you look for the Spirit to reveal that to you. And then you lay down what you thought was right, if it isn't right. So you just lay down, that wasn't the right way to think.
Dale:
God brings the deliverance from competitiveness. Bingo.
Debbie:
Immaturity and the competitiveness.
Dale:
Exactly. See, there's no competition in oneness. How can you compete with yourself? There's a laying down of the way you did things in the past. When you lay those things down , and You reach into the Spirit. And I loved how you stress that Ken, and it's so true . You move into the Spirit you'll realize that it's like in Hebrews, you're going to run the race of endurance, and you're stripped down of everything, I'm terribly paraphrasing, that you're stripped down of all encumbrances.
If there isn't one of the first encumbrances that the Spirit brings for you to get rid of, and that's competitiveness. Even in what we believe, we compete. What was Christ to us? He was one who we follow. We don't compete with Him.
Debbie:
Wouldn't you say that competitiveness is related to immaturity? Mm hmm. If you're immature, what do I mean by that? If you are, you are immature in the, . in the things of the Lord. You just came into a relationship with the Lord. You don't know how to respond to certain things. And so you, you compete.
Ken:
Do you want to be right?
Debbie:
You want to be right. You want to be perfect before the Lord. You want to be in the right place. You think that others are greater than you are. Thinking about the disciples, which one's greater.
Ken:
Debbie, remember, how the disciples hated that those two would even ask to be seated on the right or the left.They were disgusted with them. That was a breaking of the oneness right there.
Ron:
The reason that you have all these competitions and comparing is because you really don't know who you are.
Debbie:
That's exactly right. You don't know who you are in the Lord. You are coming into a place where you, you're finding out who you are.
And it's not a negative thing necessarily. I think every one of us have come through this phase.
Ed: fix eds voice....
It's getting out of your immaturity that you have. Because as you talk with each other, you're going to learn what more about what God is if you're open to it
.
Ken:
Joel chapter two, they walked arm and arm, they walked into the battle together. They did not break ranks. They did not thrust one another through. That is the oneness that God's looking for in all of us.
