PSALMS 133:1 A Song of degrees of David. Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! 2 It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron’s beard: that went down to the skirts of his garments; 3 As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion: for there the LORD commanded the blessing, even life forevermore.
Often, when we talk about unity, it is at a very superficial level. Unity is far more than just two people getting along together in agreement. Real unity must be rooted in a relationship with the Lord. Often, we endeavor to bring unity into a situation without understanding that real unity has its beginnings in our origin – Who are we? Where did we come from? Why are we here?
Jesus said, “I and my Father are one (John 10:30).” This unity that Jesus had with the Father was the basis of His unity with everything.
Like begets like
When you divide a glass of water into two, the substance remains the same – the water can be poured back into the original glass and there is complete unity within the water. The molecules have not changed – the water is the same. God the Father is the source of all things; everything was made from His substance. The Father’s substance is the underlying substance of everything, both in the natural and spiritual realms.
JOHN 16:27 For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God.
JOHN 17:8. For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me.
Everything is connected
The Bible tells us that even if a sparrow falls dead to the earth, the father knows about it.
MATHEW 10:29 Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.
How can this be? Well, the Holy Spirit monitors every movement in heaven and on earth. It is clear that the Holy Spirit is in everything, both in heaven and on earth. The very atoms of every rock are powered by the Holy Spirit.
Jesus said this: MATHEW 10:30 But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
Every time you lose a strand of hair, it is recorded.
COLOSSIANS 1:17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.
God the Holy Spirit inhabits all things and every change in the continuum of this existence is recognized, recorded, and felt. Understanding this is crucial to understanding unity. Unity must first be established between God and ourselves at a level that allows the flow of His life and power through us.
In many electronic devices, there are resistors that inhibit or power down the voltage and flow of electricity. We, as humans, have many resistors in us when it comes to our relationship with God: fears, insecurities, false concepts, prejudices, pride, and so on.
The level of our unity with others is determined by the level of our unity with God.
JAMES 3:16 For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.
JAMES 4:1 From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?
Until there is peace within you, you cannot be at peace with others. You must first win the battle on the inside.
There have been many attempts by Christians to try to bring unity between two or more groups and I have never once seen any of these attempts succeed.
This is because unity must first be established between the Lord Jesus and us; it must first be at a level that can sustain the unity of the brethren, and this is very rare!
Only God can bring unity! And He plans to. Holiness and unity are inseparable
As God continues to emphasize the need for Holiness and the church keeps responding adequately, the potential for true unity increases greatly. Unity is something that God brings, not man, and real unity has its essence like the One we came out from Who is LOVE.
ROMANS 13:8 Owe no man anything, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. 9 For this, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. 10 Love worketh no ill to his neighbor: therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.
When your mind and spirit agree and are unified, you shall ask what you will and it shall be done. Your mind has to be renewed so that it is in unity with your spirit; when this happens, anything is possible.
MARK 12:33 And to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding…
ROMANS 12:2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
In the gospel of John, we see Jesus’ desire for unity.
JOHN 17:11 And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.
Jesus prayed that we would be one (with the Lord) as He was one with the Father. Jesus was one with the Father and He desires that we would be one with the Father just as He was.
The Greek word for one in John 17:11 means exactly that— the numeric 1. It is not the combination of two elements.
This is important for us to understand and is fundamental to our understanding of unity.
If you mix the color red with the color blue you end up with a different color; the two are not unified – they have both become different.
You see, God will not become one with us; we have to become one with Him.
God showed His abhorrence for mixture in various ways.
DEUTERONOMY 22:9 Thou shalt not sow thy vineyard with divers seeds: lest the fruit of thy seed which thou hast sown, and the fruit of thy vineyard, be defiled. 10 Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass together. 11 Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of woollen and linen together.
LEVITICUS 19:19 Ye shall keep my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed: neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woollen come upon thee.
You are predestined to become like Jesus.
ROMANS 8:29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
We are to become like Him. I hear many of you say, “Oh, well… when I get to heaven, I will be like him, I will be changed.” Yes, you will, but you will have missed out on your destiny and purpose of becoming like Him while still here on Planet Earth in the flesh.
Jesus is coming for a perfect bride
The Apostle Paul prayed this: “My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you (Gal 4:19).”
Paul was talking about the here and now, not in eternity.
Jesus said:
MATTHEW 5:48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
JOHN 17:21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
John 17:23 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.
You say, “Well, I will never attain that kind of perfection; it must mean something else. when we see something in God’s word that seems impossible, the carnal mind thinks that it must mean something else.
You cannot change yourself.
No matter how hard we try, we cannot become like Jesus. However, you can strongly desire to be like Him and make choices that will put you into a position where you can be changed. Jesus said this:
MATTHEW 11:28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
Are you tired of trying, finding that it is just too hard? Jesus said COME TO ME and I will give you rest. Stop trying, Jesus said to take His yoke upon you; what is this yoke? Well, a yoke is something that binds you to something else. When you yoke two oxen together, they are joined and can’t get away from each other; they are yoked.
Jesus wants you to come to Him and stay close to Him and let Him change you; only then can you find rest for your soul.
This is a Choice
You must choose to come to the Lord and stay close to Him. How do you do that? In verse 29 of the above passage, Jesus said, “Learn of me.”
What are we to learn from Him? “For I am meek and lowly in heart.” You see, only those who know – really know – that they cannot make it without Him will actually make it.
Meekness implies no resistance; lowliness or humility implies that you cannot do it on your own.
We need to learn the Secret Key.
You are not changed by your own efforts; you are changed by exposure to the presence of the Lord. It is not in your doing that change comes; it is in being – being in His presence.
Bookstores are full of self-improvement courses that teach how to change yourself. Humanism has a powerful hold over the church. It has infiltrated our understanding of many of the major doctrines of the Bible such as faith, sanctification, and holiness. We need to have it drilled into us that only Jesus can change us, and this requires just being close to Him and as He makes His will known to us, we obey and go on staying close to Him.
The Pharisees could not get this at all; Jesus said this to them:
JOHN 5:39 Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. 40 And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.
The Pharisees studied the Scriptures; they were experts in the Law but were dead spiritually. Jesus said to them that there is no real life outside of coming to Himself.
If you are going to become like Him, you must spend quality time with Him. It’s not enough to have a quick time of prayer in the morning and maybe a quick time at night. You must spend time with Him.
Jesus said,
Mathew 11:28 COME TO ME
Mathew 11:29 TAKE MY YOKE UPON YOU
The yoke is a joining with the Lord; it is walking in union with Him. It is being aware of His presence with us.
It takes time to be with Jesus, quality time; if you are not prepared to spend quality time with Him, you will not change.
It takes time to be alone with the Lord, waiting for His tangible presence to come and then staying in the aura of His presence.
It is when you are in the tangible presence of the Lord that cleansing, renewing, healing, and change begins to happen.
You cannot be with Jesus and remain the same.
2 CORINTHIANS 3:18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
This union with the Lord brings us more and more into unity with Him. As we begin to change, the unity we have with Him increases until our spirit and mind become one – united with the Lord.
As we are exposed to the light that emanates from the Lord, deep changes begin to take place – almost unnoticeable at first, but something is happening deep within you as your spirit takes in more light and begins to pour out that light and power throughout the rest of your being. You begin to change from the inside out.
2 CORINTHIANS 4:6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
COLOSSIANS 2:10 And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power.
ACTS 17:28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, for we also are his offspring.
JOHN 15:4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.
JOHN 15: 7 If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
Unity with the Lord Jesus is one of the most urgent requirements of the hour. It is vital for us if we are to come into the next phase of God’s purposes in the earth for our lives.
Birth-pangs are upon us.
At present, we are experiencing the beginnings of profound change. Many things are happening that can bring confusion to us unless we understand what is going on. The culmination of years of promises, prophesies, and words from the Lord are intersecting in time with us now; the set time for many things has now come.
Some of the most profound changes in the church since the early church period are now in the birthing process.
ISAIAH 66:9a Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to bring forth? saith the Lord.
Birth is messy and painful.
Nothing disrupts a household more than the birth of a baby. The birth of a baby requires the death of certain things for the parents. Their time is no longer their own, and for sure they will get less sleep than they are used to. Much of the old ways of life cannot come over into the new.
These old ways of life can be compared to the Placenta when the baby is in the womb of the mother.
The placenta is composed of two parts: One of which is genetically and biologically part of the fetus, and another which is part of the mother. It is implanted in the wall of the uterus and is connected to the fetus via the umbilical cord, which is composed of blood vessels and connective tissue.
The placenta receives nutrients, oxygen, antibodies, and hormones from the mother’s blood and passes out waste. It forms a barrier, the placental barrier, which filters out some substances which could harm the fetus. Many substances are not filtered out, however, including alcohol and some chemicals associated with smoking cigarettes. Several types of viruses, such as Human Cytomegalovirus, may also cross this barrier; this often leads to various degrees of birth defects in the infant.
When the fetus is delivered, the placenta is delivered afterward (and for this reason is often called the afterbirth). After delivery of the placenta, the umbilical cord is usually clamped and severed or may be left attached to fall off naturally. The site of the former umbilical cord attachment in the center of the front of the abdomen is known as the umbilicus, navel, or bellybutton.
When the baby is in the womb, the placenta is vital to the baby’s life and survival – it is part of the nurturing process. It also has a part in filtering out anything that would be harmful to the developing baby. Once the baby is born, the afterbirth, which had a vital role before birth, is cut off and discarded; if it is not, it could poison and kill the baby. It has to be CUT OFF.
Likewise in Spiritual Births.
Conception takes place when a seed is placed in your spirit. That seed is planted there by a word from God, a prophesy, a dream, or in many other ways that God implants vision, purpose, and destiny. When Mary conceived by the Holy Spirit, she said this:
LUKE 1:38 And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.
When that word from God is implanted into your spirit, you conceive. Then, everything goes quiet; it is just as if nothing had happened – you go through the routine of wondering: was that God? Did God really say that to me? Interestingly, God put Mary with another person who was also experiencing a miracle baby simply to encourage her to believe.
LUKE 1:39. And Mary arose in those days, and went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Juda;
41 And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost: 42 And she spake out with a loud voice, and said, blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.
After that long, quiet period, finally and suddenly contractions start. This is the painful part. When you are birthing something in God, you will receive opposition from the enemy, and the severity of the opposition is determined by the magnitude and importance of the vision and purpose of what is being birthed.
REVELATION 12:3 And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. 4 And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born. 5 And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.
Satan will always try to kill off the vision God gives you. Spiritual births require spiritual warfare to bring forth. Often they are bloody, messy, and exhausting and require something in us to die. Your life will not be the same again.
The things that nourished the vision – the spiritual placenta, the afterbirth – have to be cut away and discarded. The new always requires the death of many things of the old, things that played a part – often a vital part – but they can’t come across into the new or the baby could be poisoned.
When a chicken hatches from the egg, it leaves the shell behind. The scaffolding on a building has to be dismantled when the building is finished. The warfare can be fierce and the death of the old can be difficult
REVELATION 12:11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.
You may ask, “So what has this to do with unity?” We can only survive the future if we walk with the Lord and that walk requires being in unity or union with Him.
JOHN 15:4, 7 4. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. 7 If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
There is no condition or circumstance in which you may find yourself for which God has not provided a promise in His Word. You can find a scripture to fit anything you want to do. When there is something in life that demands faith, Christians usually goes to the Word of God to find a promise that fits the situation. When they find it, they pray to God and try and force God to fulfill it. God does not ask us to find a promise which could relate to our situation. He says, “Whatever I say unto you, DO.”
There is only life in the words that the Holy Spirit quickens (makes alive) to you. And in order to hear Him, you have to be at a certain level of union with Him. This union or unity comes from constantly surrendering our will to His will and constantly staying connected to Him.
God is birthing a new day to people’s lives, to churches, and nations, but the old ways have to be discarded.
“Behold, I do a new thing, saith the Lord.”
Walking in unity with the Lord is essential. The new order lives in the reality that “It is no longer I who live (Gal 2:20).”
Birth pangs – the promise of a new day that requires union with the Lord to enter into and sustain the new.
Unity of the brethren can only be achieved to the level that we are in unity with the Lord. Personal unity with the Lord precedes corporate unity.
Unity operates on many levels, but it has its underlying foundation in the level of unity that we are presently functioning in with the Lord.
The unity of the brethren is only as good as our unity with the Lord. The real unity of the brethren has to be rooted in the will of God; it is not built around the agreement of man. Rather, it is built upon the will of God in any given situation. It is not found in getting others to agree with us; it is found in understanding the will of God and submitting to His will. That is why the Holy Spirit wrote this through James:
JAMES 4:1 From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?
Unity cannot be achieved unless all parties are genuinely seeking God’s will and are surrendered to God’s will. Corporate unity based on surrender to God’s will is very powerful.
PSALM 133:1 A Song of degrees of David. Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! 2 It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron’s beard: that went down to the skirts of his garments; 3 As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion: for there the LORD commanded the blessing, even life for evermore.
An arrow shot from a bow has incredible penetrating power.
Many modern-day bows can be more powerful than a high powered rifle. Even back in the Middle Ages, an arrow shot from a longbow could penetrate metal amour and kill the soldier who was wearing it.
One of the reasons for this is connected to the kinetic energy stored in the long shaft of the arrow. As an arrow hits a target, the energy stored in the long shaft continues to push the arrow forward, giving it tremendous penetrating power. The power comes from the unified character of the arrow; the whole of the arrow is heading in the same direction with the same purpose.
Problems arise in churches, missions organizations, and any corporate body when there is not unity in direction and purpose. This, in turn, diminishes the ability of God to perform His will, and confusion finally destroys the objective and purpose of God’s will in the situation.
JAMES 3:16 For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.
Psalm 133:1-3 tells us that the level of unity determines the level of the anointing and blessing of the Lord. God is described as the Father of lights in His Word.
JAMES 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
Light, as we perceive it, is a mixture of different colors. We see this when we shine white light through a prism and all the colors of the rainbow are seen. Thus, white light is not unified – it is made up of different colors, each having a different wavelength. The light of a laser has much more power because the wavelength of a beam of laser light is all the same. This unity gives the laser great power.
Note that James 1:17 says that whatever comes from God, come to us without variableness.
The Greek word for variableness is parallage, from which we get our English word parallel.
In other words, that which comes from God flows in the light which is parallel or unified. God’s power or light can enter a person and cut out cancer, dissolving it completely, without destroying other cells around it.
When a group is unified in the will of God, tremendous power and anointing are released to perform that will.
Our own will and desires have to be submitted to the will of God, and this takes humility and meekness on our behalf. We have to die to the evil of wanting our way. There is only one body in Christ and one will. When we are one with God, nothing is impossible.
EPHESIANS 4:2 With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; 3 Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; 5 One Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.
When the spirit, the mouth, and the mind all agree, nothing is impossible.
MATTHEW 18:19 Again I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of My Father which is in heaven.