True Unity

William Landon writes the following words about the true basis for our unity in Christ. This is from his book The Life That is Real Life:

"We must never fall into the trap that has captured so many in religion. Organized religion, like politics and other human group activities (clubs, businesses, etc.), tend to push us toward conformity with the group and a collective mentality. At its worst, this collective mentality can even include a push toward a common personality. The pressure is great within organizations to have members conform to the group understandings, views, and values. This may seem harmless enough but it is contrary to the Father's ultimate plan for humanity. It is obvious that the Father sees each of us as unique individuals. The Father's treatment and view of us as individuals is clearly seen in the endless diversity among human beings both physically and in personality. Each of us is precious and special to the Father. We are never seen by the Father as a lump of humanity or even as a 'sub-lump' of the human race. No, it is the organization of men that attempt to push people into collective boxes. This view of people never comes from God.

"The Father has never seen identical beliefs, ideas or ways of thinking as a legitimate basis for unity. The same can be said for common ways of acting or understanding as a means to achieve union or community. Within the family of God there is only one true source of unity. This commonality is that all the members of the Father's household have the same life in them--His life. It is in the unity of the source of our life that we have our true oneness. This life comes by one common means--the Son: 'for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ' (Galatians 3:27). A similar situation exists for the unsaved. They are also united. They are united by the fact that they have no real (spiritual) life. In the end, there are only two groups of people in the universe--those that have the Father's life as their life and those that do not have that life.

"The hierarchical churches of this world are, in part, an attempt to deny the plan that the Father has instituted. Since these groups attempt to separate themselves from each other by superficial attributes such as different doctrines, creeds, rites and rituals, they oppose the only source of true unity that exists in the world. This is not too harsh or too strong a statement of the situation found within the Christian community. The issues and understandings of men--limited as they are--can never be an adequate basis for unity. This is just as true outside the family of God as it most certainly must be true within the Father's house.

"There can be no possibility of achieving unity within Christianity unless the basis of true unity is recognized and accepted. No compromise or separate understanding is possible if true unity is to be perceived and enjoyed. I say perceived and not achieved because the children of God are already united--many of them just refuse to accept that unity on the Father's terms. We are one family. The fact of the matter is that most of us just don't know or accept it yet. This is the unity we received from Christ: 'I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name--the name you gave me--so that they may be one as we are one' (John 17:11).

"This is why all the ecumenical prayer meetings for unity and all the calls for healing the divisions between the church organizations that ever have been are doomed to failure. Further, these efforts are doomed to failure for all time. No unity will come out of such things because it is not unity that we need. The organizations of men are seeking what we already have spiritually but deny ourselves organizationally. No further basis of unity is needed nor will one be given. If the Christian world truly desired unity they could pray that the eyes of their understanding would be opened to see the true basis of both their divisions and of the unity that already exists. What most Christians want is not really unity but unity under conditions they find acceptable within their denominations.

What About Me?

"The issue of Christian unity is a classic example of the kind of problem we suffer under when we live in the soulish dimension of human life. The Christian community has an unshakeable basis for unity but we fail to see or accept it. Why? It is not unity we lack as the family of God, it is an acceptance of unity the way God provides it. This is but one small example of our desire to express our individuality. It is neither our individuality or our wanting to express it that is wrong, it is the wrongful expression of that individuality that continues to be the problem.

"It is the exerting of our individual will in opposition to the Father's plan that makes soul life such a potent barrier in our coming into the full expression of the life the Father gives us to live. The rebellious expression of our individuality is the attempt each of us makes to be the god of our own life. At its most fundamental level, the evil of this type of living is that it is the attempt we make to live in a state of independence from the Father.

"It is a lie of the evil one that we can live successfully in independence from the Father. We were created to be containers of the Father's life. One of the consequences of this fact is that we cannot exist in a true state of spiritual independence. This inability arises from the fact that we are not born physically with a spiritual nature of our own. We have to rely on a source outside ourselves for our spiritual guidance. We were created as 'a living soul' but our human spirit is not fully functioning in its native state. We are made in such a way that we must serve either God or Satan: 'Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him a slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey--whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?' (Romans 6:16). Paul leaves us with no third option. We must either be committed to sin (Satan) or committed to righteousness (God).

"We need to let the Father bring us to a level of acceptance and understanding of this truth about human existence. We cannot live as independent spiritual entities. The Father created us this way so that we would have a need to seek Him. If we reject God we automatically accept Satan's spiritual guidance. We have a will but this can only choose between options, it cannot create its own possibilities. All of this comes out of our having a human spirit that is largely non-functional until it is animated by the life of God through Christ. It is only the true life of God that can bring our human spirit to a fully functional condition.

"Until a person accepts the Father's life through Christ, their spirit is inanimate (except for the conscience). In this condition, our moral guidance must come from the only other spiritual guide in creation--Satan."