With Jesus as your essential, his love as the ultimate mission, we can all do well to look for opportunities to work with those with whom we disagree. Promise and fulfillment, it is not always easy to live into both. Whether I am pleased or upset about the outcome, I will seek to understand the concerns and aspirations of those who voted differently and will look for opportunities to work with people with whom I disagree.” “Regardless of how the election turns out, I will not hold hate, disdain, or ridicule for those who voted differently from me. I recently read an article from a Moravian church – that worships differently than I do – but provided a loving statement for a time such as this. ![]() As we approach our seasonal time of national elections, I want us to remember Jesus' prayer in John 17 over zealots, competing bands of brothers, rule followers and rule breakers, better known as his disciples, when Jesus prayed “ that they may be one.” Their oneness in Christ did not make them uniform, it made them the Body of Christ. It is a gift our founders gave to us, knowing full well that the various groups of immigrants crossing the pond, as it were, to a new land came with differing opinions on faith and values. Our country has the gift of expressing our opinions through voting. How various faith communities administer the sacraments (juice or wine), demonstrate prayer (dancing or silence), preach the word (20 minutes or 2 hours), dress for worship (jeans or dresses) comes under the liberty 'non-essentials' - following our conscious on how to worship the One who can do exceedingly more than we can possibly imagine, Ephesians 3:20. Add worshiping with safe physical distancing, face masks, and via live-streaming the Church of Jesus is yet again adapting and changing except for one little thing: Augustine's little but powerful quote ending with Jesus' greatest commandment: love. Nor has the task ever been easy, but our common beliefs in the Sovereignty of God, Jesus' cup of the new covenant sealed by his blood for the forgiveness of sins, and the Spirits work among us remains our essential unity. That was not an easy task for a relatively new Church. Augustine, writing in the 5th century, was striving to gather the commonality of the Church in his time. the forgiveness of sins and life everlasting - and everything in between. ![]() I love saying the Apostle's Creed as an affirmation of what unites Christians: I believe in God the Father, maker of heaven and earth. Augustine was not rewriting scripture he was affirming the hardest part of scripture: how to live in Christ when we differ. In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things love.Īugustine wrote “In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things love.” For 1500 years the Church of Jesus Christ has quarreled over this phrase.
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