The Call and Unity of GOD

The Call and Unity of GOD

The call to serve GOD and to unity both center around His creation of humanity and His purpose for creation from the very beginning.

The first call of GOD for His creation – humanity is to have dominion over the rest of His creation and the earth, Genesis 1:26¹ “Then GOD (Elohim) said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over all the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’” In verse 27 GOD created humanity in His image and likeness and in verses 28-30 GOD commissioned humanity! In verse 31 GOD saw that His work was good.

Elohim = the most frequent Hebrew word for GOD (over 2500 times in the OT). Plural in form, but singular in construction (used with a singular verb or adjective). When applied to the one true GOD, the plural is due to the Hebrew idiom of a plural of magnitude or majesty (Gen. 1:1, etc.)…Means either “be strong” or “be in front,” suiting the power and preeminence of GOD. Jesus is quoted as using a form of the name from the cross (Matt. 27:46, Eli; Mark 15:34, Eloi).²

Dominion = supreme authority; a territory subject to such authority as a part of an empire but with much power of self-rule in local matters.³

The first call of unity is marriage, Genesis 2:24 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Adam and Eve did not have earthly parents, but in GOD they were united and became one flesh. At some point in history government took the responsibility for the marriage covenant but GOD is the author and only He can make a couple one flesh. Jesus said in Matthew 19:6, “So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what GOD has joined together, let no man separate.” Study Matthew 19:1-15

Chrystal Evans Hurst said, “Adam and Eve had the best parents and they still had the right to choose.”⁴ This led to the first sin of lawlessness or being a law unto oneself. Because of Satan’s deception they believed they could be like GOD. Study Genesis 3; 2 Corinthians 11:1-4

Marriage is a dominion of unity, it is a territory of GOD’s Empire (Kingdom). Family which comes out of marriage is an expanded territory in GOD’s Kingdom, families make a community which is an even larger territory in GOD’s Kingdom. In all these territories we have self rule under GOD’s authority.

He called Noah, He called Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, He called Moses and Aaron, He called Israel, He called Joshua and the Judges, He called David and Solomon, He called the Prophets, He called Jesus Christ, He called the Apostles, He called the Church, He called Barnabas and Saul (Paul), He called America, He called you and me. Everyone that GOD called He called not just to his purpose but He called to unity with Himself and those He called them to.

He called Jesus the Christ and Jesus was totally yielded to the Father, John 6:38-40, “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing but should raise it up at the last day. And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.” In the Garden of Gethsemane He said, “Father if it is Your will take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will but Yours be done.” Luke 22:42

But Jesus did not just come to fulfill His predestined purpose of redeeming humanity and creation. He came to bring humanity and creation back into unity with GOD as they had been before the fall by Adam. Study John 14:1-11, 15:1-8, 16:5-15, 17:1-26; Romans 5:1-11, 8:18-30; 1 Corinthians 12:12-31, 15:20-28; Ephesians 1:15- 2:22, 4:1-24; Philippians 2:1-11; Hebrew 3:1-6; 1 Peter 2:1-10; 1 John 3:1-3

The scripture is clear that Adam’s sin of lawlessness led to his death or loss of eternal unity with and in the presence of GOD. This caused a genetic change in Adam that is passed down to every human being. Study Genesis 3 thru 6; Romans 5:12-21; 1 Corinthians 15:20-28; 1 John 3:1-9

Jesus called the Church to obey His commands and to love one another. Then before He ascended He called us to the works of His Kingdom on earth, we call it the great commission which is to preach the gospel in all the nations, lay hands on the sick and see them recover, cast out demons, tread on serpents and scorpions, raise the dead, make His enemies His footstool and disciple the nations of the earth into His Kingdom. Study Matthew 28:16-20; Mark 16:14-18; John 13:31-35, 14, 20:19-23; Acts 1:4-8

Our Call

In many testimonies we hear the term, “When I found the LORD.” The truth is most believers were not looking for Him before they became a believer, we were avoiding Him as much as possible, but He knew where we were and what we were and He pursued us until we found Him. It’s because of His Love for us that we should be faithful to pursue Him and obey His call for our life.

Based on 1 Corinthians 7:24, “Brethren, let each one remain with GOD in that state in which he was called.” KJV Oswald Chambers says, “We all have to find our niche in life. In order to do this we must have companied with Jesus; we must know Him as more than a personal Savior.”⁵

Paul of Tarsus also said, “For the gifts and calling of GOD are irrevocable.” In Romans 11:29

There is a repeated theme in Paul’s letters, Christ crucified, raised and ascended to the Father so that we being a new creation in Him should be obedient to the call and the unity of GOD. Romans 12:3-8, “For I say through the grace given to me to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly that he ought to think, but to think soberly as GOD has dealt to each a measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we being many are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us let us use them: if prophecy let us prophesy in proportion to our faith; or ministry let us use it in our ministering; he who teaches in teaching; he who exhorts in exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy with, cheerfulness.” Study 1 Corinthians 1, 2:1-5; Galatians 2:19-21, 6:11-15; Ephesians 1:15-23

Psalm 139:13-18, “For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well. My bones were not hidden from You when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me when as yet there were none of them. How precious also are Your thoughts to me O GOD! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them they would be more in number than the sand; when I awake I am still with you.” Study Job 10:8-12; Psalm 119:73; Isaiah 49:1-2; Jeremiah 1:4-5; Zechariah 12:1; Romans 8:26-30; Galatians 1:11-17

So it should be clear that GOD not only created us, he formed us and called us. He has a plan and purpose for each of us, no matter who we are or where we were born and live. His plan is based not on our desires and wants but on His Kingdom coming and His Will being done in the earth as it is in Heaven. As we walk with and serve Him our desires will conform to His call and gifts for our life and we will find true joy and fulfillment in them.

How do we find our Call?

Matthew 6:33, “But seek first the Kingdom of GOD and His righteousness and all these things shall be added to you.” 7:13-14, “Enter by the narrow gate for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life and there are few who find it.” 7:19-20, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.” 7:21-23, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘LORD, LORD,’ shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in Heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘LORD, LORD, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name and done many wonders in Your name?’ And I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’”

Finding our personal call is dependent on us, many find it by pursuing what they enjoy because GOD will make our calling something we will enjoy. Many find it by seeking GOD and being obedient to the leading of the Holy Spirit. Some never find it and they chose to do something else for whatever reason. In 2 Timothy 3:16-4:2 we are reminded that the Bible is GOD’s Word for everyone and every believers’ call includes preaching the Gospel.

In Hebrews 12:25-29 we are exhorted to hear the voice of GOD and serve it in obedience, in chapter 13:1-8 we are given examples of what that means. Study Romans 12; 1 Corinthians 12; James 1:27

Unity

Psalm 133 is the best description of the result of our unity with each other and GOD. “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! It is like precious oil upon the head, running down on the beard, the beard of Aaron, running down on the edge of his garments. It is like the dew of Hermon, descending upon the mountains of Zion; for there the LORD commanded the blessing – life forevermore.” Study Hebrews 10:19-25; Ephesians 4; 1 John 4

Our call, gifting, love and unity are all combined in our life by Holy Spirit we must ask and permit Him to do His work in our life. If He through the Word, dreams, visions, prophecies or promptings does not guide us we are likely to make mistakes and miss our calling.

Why is it so hard for us to walk in obedience to GOD in being unified as the Body of Christ (the Church) in the world? I’m not actually going to try to answer that, I’m going to try to explain what it means to be a body.

Think about your body, what a marvelously mysterious thing it is! Medical science has only begun to understand how and why our body is and functions. The truth is, as much as they know there is so much more they do not, but this is not a medical or scientific exploration. For this discussion we must set aside all of that type of thinking and just look at our body as a singular being made up of innumerable parts all with their own unique purpose and function.

Our body is fearfully and wonderfully made! We are the purposeful result of GOD’s creative desire to have a lover. Here is one of the biggest problems we have with thinking about the Body of Christ and being the Bride of the Lamb; we think after our human desires and under-standings rather than GOD’s. GOD does not want nor need a lover like we as humans do. 1 Corinthians 13 is the chapter on love and if a married couple live according to that lifestyle they will have a great marriage and love life, but sex is a purely mortal function. There is no sex or need for sex in the eternal spiritual Kingdom of GOD, and being in the continual glorious presence of the True and Living GOD we will not miss it. Study Luke 20:27-38.

Stop thinking about the Body of Christ and the Bride of the Lamb (which are one and the same) in fleshly terms.

Our body is fearfully and wonderfully made! We are the purposeful result of GOD’s creative desire to have a lover. That is the first relationship that we have with GOD, while we are in our mother’s womb, we are not aware of our body just our existence and the feeling of love and protection that we should experience. Then we are born and as we grow and gain under-standing we begin to discover our body and its many functions and how to function as a whole being in the larger world in which we exist. This is an ongoing process in life. So our relationship with GOD must grow beyond just our self to include His whole Body.

Think about your body, what a marvelously mysterious thing it is! It functions under many adverse conditions and it functions after traumatic events. It recovers and renews itself and sustains life longer than we expect most of the time. This is of course not always true, many die early deaths for a variety of reasons, accidents, sickness or disease, war, or acts of evil. This is the result of sin in our world, therefore in our lives. Not all people die because of their sin but sin is the underlying cause of death in all creation. All of us know people who have lost organs or limbs and survived and still function normally or mostly normally. Some are born with major defects or conditions and still live and have a reasonable life. Some experience horrific physical events that result in major lose of limbs and or organs and most recover and regain life.

So what am I trying to say? GOD made our body, formed from the dust of the earth and He breathed His breath of life into it in Adam. Then He took Eve out of Adam, remember what the scriptures say, GOD man male and female; then He separated them because He knew man was not a singular being and needed a companion. After that GOD forms all of us in our mother’s womb, writing out the days of our lives before any of them exist. We are marvelously and wondrously made in the image of GOD.

Now that the preamble is done here is what the LORD was showing me this morning in my prayer and reading time. (March 3, 2017)

The Body of Christ is like our body, it was made perfect by GOD who expects us to maintain it’s perfection. But He knows that we cannot without His Spirit so He has given us His Spirit.

Now we, the Church, have done many things to hurt the Body plus our enemy the devil attacks us to keep us sickly, weak, and divided. Being divided is like having an autoimmune disease, we are fighting and hurting our self, therefore we are fighting GOD!

Like many individuals who have lost organs and limbs we are wounded and have festering sores. Festering sores are the deceptions and hatred we have for other members of the Body. They do not let the wound heal and therefore the body cannot recover.

We have lost limbs and organs and wonder why our Heavenly Father does not pour out His anointing for revival and miracles. Our thinking is wrong He has; but because we are not healthy and whole the way He made us we cannot function normally as He designed us.

Like our human body we can live and function after lose and damage but not the same. We can overcome and develop reasonable behaviors and adaptations, but we are not what we should be.

Around the world right now there are calls for unity though out the Church, but if we stay as we are it will not happen and we will continue to be incomplete and inefficient in the gifts and callings for GOD’s Kingdom in the earth. If we really believe the scriptures and want to obey Christ’s commandment to love one another as He loves the Church then we must be willing to lay down our life for the Church (Ephesians 4:32; 1 John 3:16). It has to stop being about us, our ministry, our church, and our denomination. It’s all His and we are only a part of it, He determines what and where He wants us and the function that is our required part to keep His Body healthy and accomplishing His will in the earth.

In the natural our body only has a few organs that it cannot live without; brain, heart, and liver. In the Body of Christ there is only one that we cannot exist without our head, Christ. In our natural body every part and function is controlled by our brain. In the Body of Christ it should be the same, but many parts of the Body have cut themselves off from our Head or believed a lie of the devil that cuts us off from our Head.

Like our human body that we can repair and bypass some functions or replace with artificial or borrowed parts; many members of the Body of Christ have fixed or adapted themselves to make them seem whole; but we are not! My hands have 4 fingers and a thumb each, my fingers have multiple digits and if I lose a couple of them I can still function but not as well. If I lose all of them my hands can still function but not fully. If I lose one or both hands my arms can still function but even less effectively; etc.

We can only be whole and complete and fulfilling the purpose of GOD in the earth when we are truly united and The One Body of Christ. I am not saying that we need to or must do away with denominations, or individual church ministries, or anything like that. What I am saying is that if we maintain our divisions and separations at the expense of unity we will not accomplish the purpose of GOD that He expects us to and we then pass off to the next generation the responsibility to do what GOD gave us to do on top of what He has called them to do. GOD does overcome our deficiencies but He wants to use us as His one united Body in the earth to accomplish His purposes not overcome our deficiencies.

Study Genesis 1 and 2; Psalm 139; John 14 thru 17; Acts 1 and 2; 1 Corinthians 12 and 15; Hebrews; 1 John 4

Notes:

¹ All scripture quotes are from the New King James Version of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1994, unless otherwise noted.

² The New Compact Bible Dictionary, Zondervan Publishing House, 1967

³ New Concise Webster’s Dictionary, Modern Promotions/Publishers, 1984

⁴ As heard on a Television Interview on The DayStar Television Network, 2017

⁵ My Utmost For His Highest, Oswald Chambers, Garbor’s Heart ‘N Home, Inc., 1988