HOPEFULLY WE WILL GET THE ANCHORAGE MORAVIAN CHURCH ENTRY WAY DONE IN TIME FOR THE ALASKA FEDERATION OF NATIVES CONVENTION IN ANCHORAGE, ALASKA THAT BEGINS ON OCTOBER 20, 2022. A lot of Native people from throughout Alaska will visit Alaska’s largest city celebrating their Unity. We hope to have special worship services at 3512 Robin Street on October 21-23, 2022, 6 pm.Unity is something Moravians are known for! What is Unity? Unity in the body of Christ includes a solid commitment to love the family of God. Romans 12:10, KJV:, says, “Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another.” It tells us that we are o have affection for those in our family: not just to tolerate one another, but truly accept one another. This means feeling love towards those people who we disagree with.
Peter and Paul did not always agree with one another. Paul even called out Peter on his hypocrisy when he stopped interacting with Gentiles (Galatians 2:11-13). But the differences between these two men did not prevent them from being united in their love for one another. Peter writes in 2 Peter 3:15-16, “and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation — as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the scriptures.”
Peter realizes that through God’s wisdom and love that even though Paul may be difficult to understand at times, he is indeed a beloved brother who has received wisdom from God. Colossians 3:13, 14 states that we must be “bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection.” When we truly love one another, God’s love in us perfects us. In this way, we grow and mature our faith.
I think though we may differ on many different views and interpretations from God’s Word, we can still love one another. We can disagree. But as true believers in God’s Word, we don’t have to compromise His Holy Word. We can still rejoice along with Peter and Paul and remember we are all members of the family of God when we are truly born again in Christ.
We don’t have to judge others; that’s God’s business. There is a difference between judging and being judgmental. We must judge (or discern) as Christians between right and wrong, good and bad. But we must not have a judgmental attitude like the Pharisee in Jesus’ story in Luke 18:
Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: “God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.” But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. —Luke 18:10-14.
