Divided and Conquered

Unity. Not something found very often in life today. Not found in marriages, families or churches for that matter. In Ephesians 4, Paul talks a lot about unity. It is a Biblical principle that we are to apply to our marriages, families and churches. So what keeps us from it?

Most would likely say the problems stems from a me centeredness. And in part I would agree with that, but for a different reason. The problem comes from a failure to understand the Creator creature principle. God is the Creator and we are His created creatures. Yet we live our lives like we are in charge of the universe. Not you though. Right?

How often do you decide what to do or not to do completely without reference to what your Creator has commanded? How many daily decisions do you seek His guidance on? The big ones only? You don't want to bother Him with the little ones? Oh right, He is infinite, but I'll just handle this one. Which leads us to "just handle" the slightly bigger ones, and eventually "just handle" the big ones too.

Take the education of our children as an example. Does the Bible speak to this issue or has God remained silent on such an important matter? How we educate and train our children up is one of the most important decisions we will ever make, (no "do overs" you know.) So how do we decide? Do we study God's word and look for His clear direction, or just blindly follow the rest of the herd? It seems at least 85% of Christians just follow the herd according to Barna's research. We turn our children over to an unbelieving institution to be trained, surprise, unbiblically, both as to content and as to methodology.

Gary DeMar recently said in Biblical Worldview magazine "Saying prayers at sporting events, reciting 'under God' in the Pledge of Allegiance, praying around a flag pole once a year, and having the right to 'a moment of silence' do not constitute a Christian education. The entire curriculum must be Christ-centered."

The worldview of children from Christian families who are not trained up by either their parents or by one of the 5% of Christian schools who do teach a biblical worldview, has continued to plummet to the point that most have adopted a fully formed humanistic understanding of life rather than a biblical one. Is that what you want for your children or grandchildren?

The sad part is, not only are families missing it, the church is too. When churches divide up their Sunday schools and send the teachers and children off to different corners of the church rather than keeping everyone together, what are they doing? They are telling the families that the principle of fathers and mothers training up their children under God is not the norm, certainly not the norm for the church.

Let's divide them up and let them each go their own way. This way the church will not be united under God. Rather it will be divided and ultimately ineffective at changing the children's lives. Who likes this plan? God or Satan? It certainly doesn't reflect a biblical methodology.

The vast majority of all children graduating from school never return to the church. Is the current system so successful that we can ignore God's principles for our lives? Read your Bible. Obey God. He will bless your obedience. He says so.