I recently taught a class as part of our "In Him" series, based on the letter to the Ephesians, in which I ask the question, Is there room in the church for division?  The overwhelming answer is absolutely not. Well if there is no room for division then why do we have so much?  We seem to divided over all sorts of doctrines and policies.  Most of which by the way, have nothing to do with salvation or at least your eternal destination.  The Word of God is clear on this subject.  We should all be speaking and teaching the same doctrine concerning salvation if nothing else.  Yet in the body of Christ we have large denominations that teach strongly that one cannot be saved unless they are baptized in water.  Another group teaches that unless you are Spirit filled you cannot be saved.  Another teaches that salvation is a process and after some testing you may confirm your salvation through a ritual.

If the body of Christ is confused, what must the lost world think?  Can we at least get together that salvation is not of works? Can we then see that our salvation is a total gift from God not earned in any way, shape or form by our actions or inaction. To start there at least puts us all on the same playing field.  Now to take a look deeper into what it means to know that the Lord, He is one.  Most of the big religions (non-Christian) have some sort of rule book that takes them to a higher place of existence in their particular belief.  The folks who get join those faiths no the expectations if they want to excel into higher levels of existence.  They gladly follow as many rules as possible to get into their particular order of enlightenment.  Not so much with Christians.  Most of us mosey along just trying to get to church most Sundays of a year.  It's like if we hit .500 we succeeded.  But what if we believers would jump in both feet?

The only way to do that is to make it a daily choice to want to make God's presence known in your daily life.  This does not mean being aware of the rules.  It simply means you make a conscious effort to invite God into your day.  You begin to look for His handy work in all aspects of your life.   It sounds easy. but Israel was given the same opportunity and chose the rules instead of the relationship.  Jesus taught us that the most important thing was to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and body.  When you love someone it isn't a lot of effort to be aware of their presence constantly.  Even when they are not physically there you can feel there influence and you long for the next touch from them.  I know that sounds like a lot of romance novel kind of stuff.  The reality is though that God the Creator of all that exist is longing to be in your presence.  He looks for you each day.  He pursues you like a lion in heat.  Now the rub comes when we think that we are the pursuers.  That leads to us performing in order to attract God's presence.  Did Jesus not say that He would never leave us nor forsake us?

You see too much of the body of Christ is pursuing the Lord through their rules.  These rules divide because they make some who follow less than others who do not.  The religious rules give us heartburn instead of heart warmth.  The thing I like best about being at Messiah Community Church is that the folks in the pew have no agenda and the leadership has no agenda.  We have no self interest to make God do anything or to make it look like He is doing something for us that isn't doing for anyone else.  Our hearts are one in this thing, Jesus Christ came to save sinners of which I am chief. We needed salvation and we obtain it one way.  Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.