Episode 284: I’m Takin. . .United

I’m Talkin’, episode 284, for September 24th, 2023.

This is Joel from the I’m Talkin’ microcast, where I share my thoughts on a topic that has piqued my interest this past week.

This week, we’re talking United.

United is a pretty good word.

Just the connotation of being together, of being of the same mind, it just brings a kind of comfort and maybe a kind of peace, and it’s really hard to argue with people who are United, and that is something that those who are United realize as well.

And so then, United becomes divisive, because if some are United for one idea, and others are United for a different idea, and those are like polar opposites, then all of a sudden you have division amongst United, and it can be very confusing, and therein lies the challenge for those of us who call ourselves Christians.

It’s interesting when we think of being United as Christians.

We think, hey, we all are followers of Jesus Christ, so aren’t we United in that sense?

And yes, we are, but there is some issue with that.

I think that Jesus said, when he was on the earth, he said, you think I come to bring peace, but I come to bring enmity or division, and he’s not necessarily talking about between believers, though, because Jesus wants believers to be United.

He wants us who call on his name to be of one mind, not the same, not thinking the same, not robots, but to be United, and that is difficult to do.

When we think of any group, large group that gathers, even in their United front against something or in favor of something, there still is division on how things are approached and how things are accomplished.

So it’s very hard for us to always be United, for us to always agree with each other.

So what are we to do?

I’m not sure I have the exact answer of what to do when we think of being United as a body of believers.

So I’m going to borrow something from Chuck Swindoll, a person who I admire.

I listen to his podcast on a daily basis, and he says something like this.

He says, in essentials, unity, and that means in the actual essentials of our belief, in the fact that Jesus is the Son of God, that he died on the cross to save us from our sins, that only through faith can we have a relationship with Jesus Christ.

All those different things that are essentials of our faith, we must show unity.

We must be United.

And then he goes on to say, in non-essentials, liberty.

And so that means in our United front, there has to be some freedom to be unique.

There has to be freedom to be an individual.

There has to be freedom to think on your own, to be able to discuss different points of view, as long as we are United on the essentials.

So there’s a freedom in that that we have to recognize as well.

And then he ends it with, in all things charity, which means in a United front, in the freedom and liberty of being individuals, if we approach each other in love, then our Unitedness, okay I’m trying to use a word because I said United, but our unity becomes apparent to the world in which we live.

And so that is the challenge that we have as Christians to do that.

So I want to just say that the three points of what Chuck Swindoll says, without explanation, so you can hear it one time, I would suggest maybe commit it to memory.

And it goes like this, in essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity.

Until next week, this is Joel from the I’m Talking Microcast.