OK — so where do we start?

How about here:  “Make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose,” (Phil. 2:2).  The greatest single threat to Christian unity is apostasy, or losing sight of the simple truth.  We spend far too much time and energy on things that are not essential to what Christ would have us do and this is what causes so much bickering and disunity among Christians.  Jesus said that the world would know that we were His disciples by the love that we have for one another (John 13:35).  In Col. 3:14, it says that love is the perfect bond of unity. The New Testament speaks about us being unified in Christ (Eph. 4:5).  In response to Christians who follow after individuals rather than Jesus, Paul says that Christ is not divided (1 Cor. 1:12-13).  Though Christ is not divided, his body of believers is. For the Faith Alliance to succeed in its mission, the concentration we must achieve with Laser-like focus, is acts rooted in His love and His commandment for us to love one another as he loves us. Nothing to the left of that and nothing to the right…

It is alright, even healthy, to have differences of opinion, yet far too often these differences become justification for division.  Without the constant reminder that comes from a clear singularity of purpose, division becomes the central focus, keeping us from our real intentions leading to antagonism, infighting and anger. When this occurs, the love of God in our hearts is sacrificed to our pride. Instead of saying to one another, “I am right and you are wrong,” we could be saying something like, “We can disagree on that point, but for now, let’s work together to glorify God and expand His kingdom.”  Perhaps this is too simplistic, but at least it displays an attitude of humility that helps to bring unity.  It is the dark one who wants us to fall into division and bickering.

OK, so many see the LGBT lifestyle as an abomination and abhorrent to Christianity, but is that really where Christ wanted us to focus our efforts?  Is that the best use of our time?  I don’t know about anyone else here, but I am not so confident in my ability to interpret the divine word of God that I would so quickly and callously disregard that community or any others who I see as outside The Truth.  Our purpose as Christians is to remain faithful to the teaching of Jesus Christ and while there may be things around which there is arguably ambiguity and room for differences of opinion, Christ made it extremely clear and readily apparent what was of the utmost import to him.  “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.'” (Matthew 25:40).  Clearly, the most important thing to Jesus was that we love and serve his flock.

But perhaps the most essential question and truest test of Faith is this: If an LGBT person or family in our community needed our help, would we withhold it?  Would we not heed the last great commandment Christ gave us?  The night before he died, he said to his disciples, “I give you a new commandment, love one another” (John 13:34). Love is the key and the measure of his followers. We need to look at our own hearts and our own minds and compare them to Jesus and the Scripture. Where ever the two are not in agreement, it is we who need to change.  We need to pray that the Lord would provide opportunities to unite and work with other Christians across these petty lines and recognize that we have differences of opinions and worship styles and that is okay.  But we need to lift each other up and be united in Christ. That is as complicated as we need to make it.  Leave everything else at the door.  If we cannot agree to focus on serving his people and then do that and that alone, there cannot be any alliance.  The spirit may be willing but the flesh is certainly weak.  And the dark one will use every ounce of this to keep us from living Christ’s great commandment.  I do not wish to focus on the sinner, but only on His service to them, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” (Romans 3:23)

This is the only way forward.