And I want you to know, my dear brothers and sisters, that everything that has happened to me here has helped to spread the Good News. For everyone here, including the whole palace guard, knows that I am in chains because of Christ. And because of my imprisonment, most of the believers here have gained confidence and boldly speak God’s message without fear.
It’s true that some are preaching out of jealousy and rivalry. But others preach about Christ with pure motives. They preach because they love me, for they know I have been appointed to defend the Good News. Those others do not have pure motives as they preach about Christ. They preach with selfish ambition, not sincerely, intending to make my chains more painful to me. But that doesn’t matter. Whether their motives are false or genuine, the message about Christ is being preached either way, so I rejoice. And I will continue to rejoice.
-Phillipians 1:12-18
I am often shocked at the way believers judge, ridicule and put down other believers.
Count me guilty.
I point the finger at other pastors and churches who may happen to use a different method of reaching people than I do. I point the finger at other pastors and churches who may use THE SAME method of reaching people that I do just because my pride tells me they are being copy cats.
Guilty.
What have we become?
Whether we preach Jesus to make Him famous or we preach Jesus to make us famous, at least Jesus is being preached. But remember He is eternal and we are sinners.
I thought we were IN THIS TOGETHER…
Somewhere along the way we distorted the message and unity no longer became important in the process of making Jesus famous on this earth.
Guilty.
We say we want unity but we compete with the church next door in how many road signs we can fit on one intersection.
Unity?
Unity happens when we become KINGDOM minded instead of CHURCH minded.
When the church decides that Jesus’ name is more important than our church’s name THAT’S when this world will turn to him.
It’s up to us.
Jesus already did his thing…remember?
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