How Would Jesus Vote? || Maintaining Unity
Matthew 22:36-40
Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
The church is not to be found at the “center” of a left/right political world. The church is to be a species of its own kind, confounding left, right, and middle and finding its identity from the “center” of Jesus’ life.
RICH VILLODAS
Ephesians 4:1-3
I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
Compromise or Cancel
John 17:20-23
“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may becomeperfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me
Romans 14:5-9
One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. 6 The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. 7 For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. 8 For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. 9 For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.
If your convictions aren’t biblical, they are at best useless opinions and at worst they are damnable lies.
How do we maintain unity when we come to opposite conclusions based on biblical convictions?
James 1:19-21
Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. 21 Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
Romans 15:5-6
May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, 6 that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
I took great joy that I was suffering in my country, so that you could be free to witness in your country. Don’t ever give up in freedom what we would never have given up in persecution. That is our witness to the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
Stoyan – The Insanity of God.