The Eventual Miracle by Brian Splittorff

I am seeing a trend in the Church in the United States today: we are moving rapidly towards cooperation between the denominations. Many writings lately have addressed the issue (one of which was written by a Baptist!) The first writing was a devotional by Pastor Andre Butler for Streamingfaith.com. He writes “…the faith (meaning the Christian faith in Jesus) is defined by unity. Christianity is supposed to bring about unity. (The Church is) a family that is supposed to be unified.”

Read this: “It is not the will of God that there be so many denominations in the body of Christ that you can't remember all the names. It is not the will of God that this denomination fights against that denomination. It is not the will of God that people within the local church fight one another. No, God's plan is that the body be one. And since that is true, it is important that we do what is necessary to keep ourselves unified, to operate as one.” Why are there so many denominations? Can it be that the Church is outside the will of God? If it is God’s will we be of one accord and we are not, what other answer can there be?

In science, there is a term, symbiotic relationship, that simply means what happens to one organism affects another organism because the two are connected. This is how the Body of Christ operates. We are all one body, whether we like it or not. If one of us succeeds, we all prosper. Likewise, if one of us fails, we all feel it.

There is another scientific term, synergy, that means that two energies combined can produce exponentially more together than they could separately. The Bible speaks of it like this, “And five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight: and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword (Leviticus 26:8).” We are better together.

Pastor Butler ends his devotion by writing real unity is “something people can see. When this is the case, it will cause them (the world) to not only believe in God, but in His Son, Jesus Christ. Our unity is a sign to the world.”

Alan Riley wrote the devotional, “Blest be the Tie,” also for streamingfaith.com. Of the entire devotional, his closing remark screams for attention: “So church – and I mean ALL of the church, not just us Baptists – let’s stand up, hold hands across the aisle, and sing together: ‘Blest be the tie that binds out hearts in Christian love…’” How my heart burns for that to be a reality!