Conflicts Within the Body of Christ

One of the most uncomfortable feelings that you could experience in the Church is when you and another member(s) have a disagreement. In order for the body to be completely whole, you have to deal with that disagreement. The question is how?

How do you deal with the disagreement while at the same time preserve your self respect?

This is the wrong question to be asking.

Sadly however, it is the question that we too often ask ourselves when we do have disagreements within the body of Christ. The question we should be asking is what does God say about the issue we are disagreeing about? I find it ridiculously funny that we as Christians don’t think to ask God first about what He has said about an issue in His word. We usually ask Him last, after we have made the situation worse with our pride and egotistical attitudes.

Instead of approaching the word and removing ourselves from the situation, we refer to our feelings as to how we should proceed. When we do this we place our feelings in the driver’s seat and relegate God to passenger status. The interesting thing is that God won’t force Himself in the driver’s seat. He won’t force you to lean towards His wisdom and instruction He has given to us in His word. He will take a step back and wait for us to fall on our face. (We usually do just that) Even then, He won’t move until we drop our pride and call on His name.

God is sensitive like that.

God has instructed us to love and be kind to one another even if we have to take the initiative.

In Genesis 13:8-9 Abram took the initiative to resolve a conflict between himself and Lot by saying, “This arguing between our herdsmen has got to stop. I’ll tell you what we’ll do.” Abram placed family peace above his own desires.

Selfishness keeps conflict brewing in the midst of the body of Christ. It is a cancer to the body.

Proverbs 13:10 – Pride leads to arguments

Proverbs 28:25 – Greed causes fighting

If we just lean on God in the midst of disagreements instead of leaning towards our own flawed selfish, prideful feelings, we would see so much more of God in the midst of our churches. A sad but true statement is that Satan is present in some churches more so than God. We invite Satan and exclude God from the guest list. Then we wonder why God doesn’t answer our prayers when we call.

Psalms 55:18 – He rescues me and keeps me safe from the battle waged against me, even though many still oppose me.

I have on many occasions’ seen people who don’t know Christ, show more love to their fellow man than those who do. We (Christians) have the hardest time understanding how important is for us to show grace to one another and forgive each other.

Luke 17:3 – If another believer sins, rebuke him; then if he repents forgive him.

We like to rephrase the latter part of that verse to say …then if he repents make him continue to feel guilty.

God wants us to get this relationship thing right.

Matthew 18-15-17 – If another brother sins against you, go privately and point out the fault… If you are unsuccessful, take one or two others with you and go back again…If that person still refuses to listen, take your case to the church.

We like to skip the first two steps and go right to the take your case to the church part. So many issues escalate out of control because we let our need for retribution get in the way of God’s need for us to love one another whole heartedly.

I often tell my children just because you feel like saying something it does not mean you should say it. What I mean by that statement is that if it’s not said in love to build one another up, you probably should not say it.

We can discuss hurtful situations in love and be the better for it. But if all we have on our minds is getting even, we need to let it go until it’s not about us but rather all about God. That’s when we will see the true power that love commands and the bond that it creates.