IX.
Purified Identity: The Key to Manifesting Spiritual Unity
Our
common identity in Jesus gives us intrinsic spiritual oneness.
This applies to all Christians. But it is our dedication to
pursuing purified identity that is the key to manifesting that unity.
The purer our singular awareness of who we are in Christ alone,
the more manifest unity we display in the Spirit of Christ. We
demonstrate our ability to love one another and function
together without
respect to natural differences due to earth-based
identities, or even due to differences in our personal callings
or levels of understanding in the Lord.
When
we are together, it is enough to know that we are each and all
striving for the same purified identity -- through whatever
means -- so we are able to manifest oneness despite the
variations. I have my calling to fulfil. You have your calling
to fulfil. There are many places where our common quest has
brought us down the same roads. Yet there are places where our
common quest has taken us down different personal paths. Yet
because our quest for pure identity is still our common
denominator, we are able to manifest unity whenever we come
together, personal variations notwithstanding.
Knowing
our quest to be the same, we don't judge one another over our
variations in calling or differences due to earth-based
identities. I don't have to "buy into" your entire personal
vision or fully understand it to be in unity with you. I don't
have to think like you think to be in harmony with you. I only have to recognize
your desire to purify your identity, and trust that you are able
to recognize the same desire in me without feeling compelled to
have to totally "buy into" or understand what personal vision
directs me.
I
stand back to marvel at the great spectrum of various
earth-based identities, levels of understanding, and differences
in personal callings embraced by the number of you who receive
these letters. So what is it that affords such unity between one
such as I and the rest of you? - and what is it that affords
such unity between those of you who know one another?
-
Certainly
not my blood identity (None of you are related to me and almost
none of you has any fellowship with anyone else in my
family.)
-
Certainly
not any of my acquired identities (Almost none of you has any
particular relationship to me because, say, I'm a piano
teacher.)
-
And
certainly not my personal vision surrounding my calling (Very
few of you relate to functioning in such a broad way to so
scattered a number of people as I do.)
So
what gives us our unity when we are together? It is our common commitment
to the purification of our new identities.
Conversely,
it is wherever we are unwilling to outgrow our old identities or
where we ignorantly reinforce them that our manifest unity is
hampered. It is where we esteem ourselves in terms of things
outside of Christ and judge one another by them -- doctrines,
perspectives, callings, lifestyles, backgrounds -- that produces
discord.
Our
self-esteem over these things and other earth-based identities
produces factions and sects. And using our faith to reinforce
our commitment to these identities is what produces false
religious unity. This explains why we often find ourselves
forced to separate from other (bodies of) Christians. Not
because we want to, but because we recognize that many use their
faith to reinforce their old identities and to give life to
artificial religious ones. This is a threat to our own spiritual
health and calling to pure identity. So we are unable to have
any part of it.
We
know that we must keep pushing into Jesus alone at the expense
of our old identities. We can use our old identities to help us
do this, but know we must never reinforce them, and that they
must ultimately drop off. No then. We only have manifest unity
as we are committed to purified identity one
with another. This alone is the definition of true spiritual
unity, and the key to its display.