loyalty and unity, churches and denominations that are known
for celebrating their commonalities more than arguing about
their differences—those are the kind of people who best entice
others out of their loneliness, pain, and despair to seek their
own peace with God through Christ.
So we should not be surprised when Satan thwarts our
unity as believers, in all kinds of different pairings and places
where we interact with fellow Christians.
He’ll do it in your local church. He’ll stir up a faction who
thinks the pastor is woefully deficient in his preaching or his
time management or his leadership style or his bedside manner.
He’ll create a stir over how loud they play the music in worship
or how often someone’s wife or daughter is allowed to sing
solos. He’ll divide old and young, traditionalists versus
progressives, private school kids from the public schoolers.
Instead of people being able to freely exercise and emphasize
their various spiritual gifts for the good of the body, he’ll cause
folks to see one person’s ministry as being a direct competitor
of another’s. Division, disharmony, friendly fire. They’re breaks
in the line of our peace.