Hand and Hand

When there’s no agreement, there’s division. How can two walk together lest they agree? Religion always tries to walk together without being in agreement, all in the name of love. The Word of God and the Cross is love. So when we don’t meet hand and hand with those two things, we cannot walk together rightly.

Jesus said that he has come to bring a sword to divide. That sword is the Truth! The Truth of the Word of God is what sets free. So, if I dwell in the freedom of the truth and my brother or sister walks in the bondage of lies calling it truth, we will be opposed to one another. Even if we try to coexist, we will always bump heads.

Agree to disagree is not love. It is lies. It is called being unevenly yoked. Even Paul said to turn from those that walk in a form of godliness but deny the truth. It’s one thing for my brother to walk in error and restore that brother in a spirit of meekness and gentleness. 
On the other hand, if my brother comes to a place of fully pushing and having confidence in the wrong way, there will be conflict. The yoke will become uneven. God said to Cain, if you do well, you will be accepted. If you do well, sin will not lay at your door. If you do not, Satan will rise up in your heart like he did with Judas and you will turn in Jesus as an enemy!

What was Cain’s problem? He was working under the labor of religion and was opposed to and jealous of his brother because his brother’s yoke was easy and without heavy burden. Cain’s slaving over religious striving caused Him to be angry with His brother, and many today, because they are slaves to religion, are rising up and stoning their brothers and sisters. Not because they just flat out hate their brother, but because one is walking in the way of God where God makes it easy and the other the way of the flesh where it is a never ending toil with little fruit. Then jealousy and offense rise up.

The most important thing amongst us is Truth. Who keeps us in the truth? – The Spirit of Truth Himself, the Holy Spirit. If we do not submit to the Holy Spirit and His teachings, we will be at ought with those who are submitting. The division that God is doing is between these two types of people, the submissive and the unsubmissive. If we do not submit to the Spirit via our own spirit, the devil is allowed in, and when the devil is allowed in, sin is allowed, offense, bitterness, jealousy and all of the above. Then you will get to a place where you don’t even know why you’re annoyed with or jealous of your brother. It is because you dwell in another spiritual land than him or her. Besides the money, Judas didn’t even know why he was turning in Jesus, but Satan entered His heart. What was the prelude to that? It was Judas always seeing another way, another kingdom. We can see that magnified when the woman poured the oil on Jesus’ feet. Judas said that could have been used for the poor, although because he did not have eyes to see, he saw another kingdom built by his own flesh. That was the beginning of his downfall. When we start to see another kingdom, it begins our downfall, and we don’t just end up coming against Jesus but also against our brothers and sisters.

You are either in the flesh or the Spirit. These are two lands that are opposed to each and always have been. The flesh can never understand the Spirit. The Bible says that the Spirit is at enmity with the flesh. They are automatically against each other. It’s a spiritual law. Today, we don’t make it a big deal when we don’t come in agreement over the Word, but it is a big deal because we are either coming in agreement with the flesh or the Spirit. Not only can we be opposing God but also our brother. Again! The flesh wars with The Spirit!

There’s a little city in the land of the flesh called Religion, and it’s the most deceiving portion of the land. It gets you to have a worldly form of godliness, but it’s not the real authentic thing. This is why we must lean not on our own understanding because we will end up in this city if we do. Everything we receive and give is by His Spirit, so if we receive something godly that is not from His Spirit and is from ourselves or somewhere else, it is not godly at all. And it will not set you apart at all. It will actually make you more worldly than before. The only difference is, you are dressed like a Pharisee now.

The best way to describe the Pharisees is like this: worldly people dressed like Godly people! They seemed so nice on the outside, but inwardly they are as ugly as their neighbor. Though by their talk, they have many philosophies and moral carnal attitudes. They make their neighbor seem like they are less spiritual than them. Meanwhile, half the time, most people that the Pharisees come against are the ones that the Pharisees should be learning from the most.

The high-end Pharisees brought Paul to the judgment seat like he was a vagabond. To them, he seemed filthy from their perspective. Though in reality, he was operating at a higher level in the Kingdom than anyone that was living at His time. Jesus was persecuted the heaviest by the supposed godly and holy of the land, and HE WAS GOD! It’s always the ones who seem godly but are inwardly opposite that give the worst persecution.

Pride is their fall because the root of their pride is their own ideas of God and how the Kingdom works. Their pride is what keeps them from finding agreement with others in the body through the truth. Many people have their own ideas of the Kingdom that have to be burned out of them, but when those little weeds start to become big ones, suddenly your little ideas are now causing division in the body of Christ because you’re convinced of a lie. Then they start to call their pride boldness, deceiving their own selves! Even thinking they’re doing God service. Even rising up with offense and bitterness against others, thinking they are doing God a service, justifying it as righteous anger, although they are coming against the one they think they are serving. If your righteous anger is based off lies and jealousy, it’s not righteous!

This is why it is important to come to a low place, not a low place that looks like false humility and pretends to be humble, but a low place that doesn’t try to get to a high place unless God exalts you. When we try in our own mighty thinking to figure out how to walk in truth and spirit, we are striving and grinding like a religious instrument, making noise but not hitting water. They sound like Cain taking that rusty old rake and grinding it against the dirt, getting nowhere, thinking they are getting somewhere, all the while, with the anger towards their brother or sister in the back of their mind.

We need to come back to that place where when we don’t know something, we just accept the fact that we don’t know until we know, until God reveals. When we’re not sure, we’re not sure. Never muster up our own faith that’s built on our own perception. Though, through real faith that comes from God, that becomes flesh in us.

We need to get back to that place where we just say, Spirit of Truth, just teach me! I’ll wait until you teach me all things! I’m not going to try and teach myself and call it you. I’m not going to stir up my own pot without your strength. You make the goods, O Holy Spirit, because if I try, I’ll walk in the flesh, and pride will be my fall. Help me receive from you and have knowing from you because when you teach me, I know that I know that I know with full confidence even if I only get a few portions a week. I don’t care as long as I’m receiving from you and only you and not the flesh. I don’t want to build my own foundation. I don’t want my works to be burned by fire in the end.

Those that are after the Spirit, mind the things of the Spirit, but those that are after their own version of the Spirit, will mind the flesh. We need to let the cross crucify our own mind. We need the cross to crucify our own heart and will so that we can get to the place of just following Him and Him building us into the full stature. To follow Him is to be resurrected in Him. Because when you follow Him, he quickens your mortal body.

This is the only way we can come to the real Truth, and this is the only way we can walk in real agreement. Spiritual kids can only be kids for so long until they grow. But if you’re not growing in the life of the truth of the Word of God, you’re growing in death. And if you’re growing in death, you’re going further and further away from your siblings in Christ.

God will not have a church where people just get together and meet but don’t fully agree. The goal is this: Everyone has different minds and thinking. We are all after one truth, one God, and one kingdom. The goal is to conform those minds into one mind which is the mind of Christ. Though to enter the mind of Christ, the old mind must die off. If the old mind is not dying off, the old man is living. The new man cannot hang around the old man, or else the new wine will burst open the old wine skins. The spiritual man and carnal man’s relationship will burst in flames! This is why we see conflict and confrontation today in the church, because the carnal believers are wrestling with the spiritual. The old with the new!

We cannot beat a dead horse. If people don’t come in agreement with Jesus in truth and in spirit, we will never be able to make it work until then because these are spiritual relationships in the kingdom based on spiritual things. If our spiritual things are opposed to someone else’s spiritual things, how can we walk together? The Bible says we worship God in truth and in spirit, but if your truth and spirit are different from mine, we are worshipping two different Gods. This is why the Bible says doctrine is important and not only doctrine but by the Spirit of God. Tablets from Heaven interpreted by God Himself! Many people know the Bible, but only few know Him. And if you don’t know Him, you don’t know the Bible. And if you’re not continuing to know and follow Him, you will stop growing, and revelation will start to cease from your life.

We must walk in love. Jesus served Judas until the end knowing from the beginning that he wasn’t in agreement and he was going to betray Him. But Jesus did not try to beat a dead horse and stop Judas. NO! He even pushed Judas to continue and said go do what you are going to do. Why? Because Judas had already decided in his heart what he was after and was blinded from there on. There was no convincing him, especially after preaching all that truth for years walking with him. You cannot show the way to a blind man unless he submits to your leading and inSIGHT! If the blind cannot submit to the one that sees, he will stay blind. Let the blind lead the blind! The disciples wanted to confront the Pharisees, and Jesus said let them alone! Let them lead each other into a ditch!

This is why Jesus told the Pharisees if you say you see but you are blind, you will remain blind. Exactly what Jesus said right there is exactly what our problem is. When we don’t have spiritual insight, but we say we do. That’s when we become religious! Because when we can see things in the kingdom clearly, there’s no way we can be religious. Though when we can barely see, and we say we have 20/20 vision, that’s when we keep ourselves in the same place going around the mountain. We won’t let go of pride so that we can see the real truth. Humility has a blindfold on and admits to it and gets blessed because Jesus takes it off thereafter!

The division is the ones with the blindfold on and the ones with the blindfolds off. The ones with it on cannot be delivered. Though the division continues because they believe they have no blindfold on. We need to be honest and real with ourselves. If we want to have unity with our siblings in Christ, we must go back to humility and ask God for real spiritual sight or else our blindness and pride will come together for our downfall. Take the blindfolds off! Then we can see together and walk, hand and hand!

By Joe Pinto