From the Home Place

May 24, 2026

Yesterday, Miss Deb, Coffee and I helped a very special young lady move into her little house in a new town. This dear girl is starting a new job in a town she knows little about, living in a neighborhood she knows even less about. Starting over again, new town, new job, new home, new church. The last part seems to be the hardest. This young lady’s heart is filled with the joy of the Lord, and she really wants to find the church where God wants her to be but, how does she go about such a venture?

This town contains an abundance of churches, each with its own story. Some are really old, some are new, but when a person asks around about the different churches of consideration, it doesn’t take very long before it turns into a Clint Eastwood movie, you know – The good, The bad, and The ugly.

Why is it that it is really difficult to find a church that lives under the full authority of Scripture? In John 17 we find the real “Lord’s Prayer.” Here, Jesus is praying to His Heavenly Father. It would appear that the most important thing on the mind of Jesus Christ during this prayer is that His disciples be different from the disciples of other religious groups of His day.

Jesus prayed this in verse 22-23, “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one. I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity…” It would appear that the primary concern for Jesus concerning those first disciples is that they display His “glory” by living in “unity.”

Now we travel from Jesus’ prayer in John 17 to the beginning of the “church” in Acts 2. The Holy Spirit now indwells all born-again believers, and the church appears to have the bond of “unity” that Jesus prayed for. Each one who has excess, sells it, shares with those in need and all are in “awe” of what God is doing! Perhaps this thing called “church” should have ended there, but it didn’t.

Turn with me to the book of Ephesians where the Apostle Paul turns from the doctrinal truths he has been teaching in the first three and one-half chapters, to Chapter 4 where he teaches us how to correctly apply biblical truth. First, you have to grasp verses one and two of Chapter 4 to understand 4:3 where we read, “being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

Dr. D.L. Moody once skillfully preached this whole chapter to his congregation; with quite effective results I might add. Dr. Moody began the series with these words, “Any time you slide two Christians together in a pew, you create friction.” A statement that has been lived out for centuries within the church.

The great coach, John Wooden once declared, “Sports do not make character, they reveal it.” It is with that in mind that I would adjust Dr. Moody’s statement to read, “Any time you slide two Christians together in a pew, your REVEAL friction.” It appears to me that the reason Jesus Christ diligently prayed for His disciples of all generations to reveal “unity” through “love” is because we do not possess either on apart from the working of His Spirit.

Again Ephesians 4:3, “being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Unity is as unnatural as selling you possessions and giving the funds to someone else is unnatural. However, when the first Christians were so excited about what God was doing within them, they wanted to reveal His love to those around them, so they loved one another, just like Jesus had prayed for.

But it wasn’t very long before unity was replaced by disunity within the body of Christ. Why? May I suggest because we have turned “church” into something we do in the flesh instead of in “the Spirit.” In an effort to remain in control of our lives, even spiritually, we have learned to trust humanity over trusting the Spirit. After all, fully trusting the Spirit could be costly!

In Hebrews 13:5 we are told, “Make sure that your character is free from the love of money, being content…” So, the Bible tells us to love God with all we are and have, yet we are warned that the love of money will breed discontent, which when you slide two discontent people together in church, they reveal how unloving people are who trust in self and stuff rather than in the Spirit. All of which painfully reveals just how little we allow the love of Christ to dwell “richly” within us so that it can work through us to reveal the “light” of Jesus to a very dark world.

Ephesians 4:13, “until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man…” So, one has toa ask, “Do we lack maturity because we lack “knowledge.” I think NOT! I would suggest that we lack maturity because we lack obedience to the knowledge we all ready possess..

Have not money and power been the downfall of humanity and the division of many churches through all generations? Jesus said it this way, “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other…You cannot serve both God and wealth.”

Perhaps we should be “diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit.” A church that really loves God and each other is the kind of church I am praying for our special young lady to find. I know that such churches exist and I thank their pastor for his excellent leadership!

Pursuing “unity” within the local church with you, Neal