Unity is persistently on the minds of Christians these days, as witnessed by the recent trend on Twitter – #4TheSakeOfOurUnity. But unity means something different to God than it does to the natural man who tries to feign unity in all sorts of ways, so we’re going to take a look at what true unity is and what it isn’t.

All the signs of life are present in our faith when we hook ourselves up to stewardship and priesthood. 

The Lord gave me a vision a few days ago during prayer that points to the true unity of the Spirit, and how our hearts beat as one with the Father when the doing of faith follows the hearing of truth.

The Lord showed me a patient monitor such as used in hospitals that tracks heart rate, breathing, blood pressure, and so forth. In other words the machine records the signs of life. I saw the readings were good and there were words written under the signs of life that said: Such a lovely thing to see.

Now let’s take this to covenant to talk about unity God’s way. All the signs of life are present in our faith when we hook ourselves up to stewardship and priesthood, which is the better way to love Jesus and each other. It is through these two pillars that our hearts beat as one with the Father.

Whenever the apostles taught on unity it was always from God’s perspective, which is why we need to place unity within the context of Jesus’ new covenant. Unity is then given a very specific frame of knowledge to define what God means and what we can expect. 

When God speaks of unity He means that we all share ONE faith, which means ONE doctrine of Christ (Eph. 4:5). Apostles are the bedrock of unity because truth is the sword God put in their hands to bring separation (Eph. 6:17). God isn’t in the business of blending the knowledge of Christ with the false knowledge of this world.

If we look at the tweets that dominate the thread, we see the normal kind of realizations and assumptions about unity that are common to man, such as,

This list is a good example of how short-sighted believers are when it comes to the unity of the faith. Their focus is on their present frustrations and they arm themselves with ideals about what unity ought to accomplish. It’s not Christ that is being followed, but rather ideals people seek after.

Unity is a problem for those who have not transitioned to the new covenant in this season of change. Faith for them is like being in a boat full of holes and they’re trying to plug these holes as fast as they can and unity just happens to be one of those holes they are trying to plug up.

A minister assumes that if he says the right thing it should solve the problem. For example, saying that Satan causes division and so we should not be divisive, but not teaching from the new covenant a minister cannot bring believers into agreement with God. So the problem is not that Satan causes division, but that believers don’t know how to walk with Jesus according to the covenant He purchased.

Unity to those undecided about God’s transition is an agreement about what they all lack. Assumptions about unity take the lead rather than the mind of Christ because the natural man has no frame of knowledge to make his faith reflect the reality of Jesus. 

The  list of ideals reflects the natural man’s own way to unity, and therefore he is not on God’s path, and he is still suffering the consequences of his heart NOT beating as one with the Father—he doesn’t have the mind of Christ. 

The believer whose perception is clouded has the same problem as the believer who needs correcting in doctrine: his faith has never been established on Jesus’ two pillars (stewardship and priesthood), so he’s been building his faith with dry bones, expecting God to breath upon his “dry bones”. 

Are you with me on this? If we take another look at the list of common frustrations expressed by Christians today, we see a parallel to Ezekiel 37, the chapter that speaks of the dry bones syndrome. It is in this chapter that God points to the reason for dryness and describes the process of unity so, we’re going to take a look at those scriptures in just a moment. 

When ministers talk about division they are talking about the differences between each other and how this sparks offense. When God speaks of division He is talking about how false knowledge cuts a person off from Christ. 

People dine on false knowledge as if it is their hope and call out to others to buy into their dry bones hope, promising that if differences are ignored, God will breath into a unified desire. The problem is that God does not breath into dry bones. Alas! A flag of truce is not true unity.

False unity is a call to the obvious. Ministers think that if they make the call to what is obvious about truth and love that they can’t possibly miss God. Saying things like: “There is no other truth but Jesus Christ”, and “Loving God’s way is the better way”. However, these are words without wisdom in that they are not directing faith according to the terms of the new covenant.

In reality, both truth and love are anchored to Jesus by way of stewardship and priesthood. The establishment of truth in the heart and the correction of false doctrines comes from stewardship,  and love is expressed through our priesthood. This is God’s way to unite our hearts to His and to one another. 

The habit of the mind is to find a short cut to unity. It’s understandable that the mind fights against God’s order and His commandment that apostles teach the doctrine of Christ. So, all kinds of short cuts have seemed ideal: If believers all congregate in the same place in prayer they hope that is a sign of unity; if we can all be in agreement on “important things” they hope that is a sign of unity. But, God is not in these short cuts to unity. It is not Jesus’ way and He won’t bless it.

Are you still with me? Let’s now head over to Ezekiel 37 to learn more. In these scriptures God reveals to His prophet that “dry bones” has to do with being destitute of hope and reveals why the heart is crying out to God, “Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts.” (Ez. 37:11)

This same condition exists in the church today as believers again cry out to God that they feel hopeless to receive from Him, they feel hopeless when they see that there are so many different Christian denominations teaching different things. And God reveals why they feel hopeless – they are cut off from Christ.

If we are honest, most believers want unity for the sake of God filling up their own hope, they really are not at all eager to have the things of Christ to fill up God’s joy. They may be eager to declare their love for Jesus, but not so eager to follow His commandment that they receive doctrinal instruction from His apostles. God’s order is that doctrinal cleansing comes before spiritual cleansing (your one-on-one relationship with God).

Because a believer wants it the other way around, his heart beats in rhythm with his own ideals that he takes from scripture. His heart is not beating as one with the Father’s heart.

The reason why God places doctrinal cleansing first is to outfit your faith and to separate it from false knowledge. When the children of Israel cried out to God they realized they were “cut off for our parts”. What does that mean for the church today?

Jesus supplies the important parts of faith to the church through His apostles for faith to be made whole, to reflect Him perfectly. He begins with laying the foundation in these 12 stones: grace, faith, righteousness, justification, sanctification, holiness, peace, rest, truth, charity, regeneration, and the renewing of the mind. With this divine DNA God begins to build faith in the likeness of Christ. He begins to lay sinew and flesh upon the bones.

Turning our attention now to Ezekiel 37 we see how God addresses Israel’s valley, which is full of bare bones. We gain understanding why Christians, cut off from apostolic stewardship, are in that same condition.

Ezekiel 37:1-9
¹ The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones,

 When God says that His hand is upon the Prophet Ezekiel it is to point to stewardship being His mouth to make known the condition of the faith of the people and to announce what He is about to do.

² And caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry.

This very dry condition not only points to the nation of Israel whose faith withered as they wandered from the covenant, but also the church on account of ministers wandering from the terms and tools of the new covenant. Where apostles are  absent, faith is dead, having nothing to resource for the doing of faith to reflect the Son of God. 

³ And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest.

The same question is asked by ministers today: Can these dry, scattered bones live? There is no sign of life in believers who do not function with the things of Christ. They are as dry bones scattered on the barren ground. Yet, there is hope in God.

⁴ Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.

⁵ Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live:

Even so also, when we prophesy Christ and announce the stewardship and priesthood of the new covenant we are the voice of God to those who have been broken off from Christ. Through His steward God declares His promise to the dry bones that they can yet find the substance of hope in Christ, telling them there is a divine process they have to consent to. They cannot remain dry bones. 

Most leave the room as soon as they hear a promise from God and start building with the promise their own way. It’s just human nature to build with hope rather than faith. If ministers would hang on just a minute longer and not take off with the promise, they would receive instruction for faith, as we see in the next few verses. 

⁶ And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the Lord.

⁷ So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone.

⁸ And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them.

⁹ Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.

Most are impulsive in the things of faith. Reading these verses they see a blank check and start making all kinds of declarations, hoping that one of them will stick. Put that practice away. 

God’s promise is that He will lead you through the process of building if you will listen to the voice of His steward. Those are His conditions or terms. As the Lord builds His body today, He adds function and beauty to faith, covering the dry bones with His grace and truth, beautifying each believer with His gifts, which need to be corralled in the priesthood. 

The first power gift you receive upon entering into covenant is the Holy Spirit and the Lord breaths within your soul His breath of life. Many of you are saying, “I’ve done that already—40 years ago!” And yes, many stopped there and did not begin to build with the elements of the gospel. The foundation was never laid, true discipleship never took place, and the gift of the Holy Spirit turned to serve self, and became a worthless token because it was severed from Christ.

We see in these scriptures God’s due process. Just as there was a process unfolded in the bones coming together and then the sinews and flesh came upon them, and the skin then covered the flesh, there is also a process to the dry bones of believers receiving the life of Christ. 

Because everyone was talking about their own dry bones experiences (and therefore needing breakthrough) it seemed a sho0-in (easy winner) to teach people how to prophesy about this dry broken condition. Assuming that everyone is in the same boat, working hard to plug the same holes. 

But in this new apostolic season Jesus is NOT leading His apostles to plug holes. The last call for this season is to get out of that boat! It’s a sinking ship. 

Thankfully, we are in the new apostolic season whereas believers are now consenting to  God’s due process in order to be fitted with the knowledge of the new covenant to function in the doing of their faith. 

We receive the Holy Spirit, but what follows is speaking in tongues. We receive instruction in the new heavenly priesthood and what follows is offering sacrifices that reflect Christ. We receive instruction in our Christian growth cycle and what follows is the healing and fruitfulness of the soul. 

It is in this pattern of truth that Christ is revealed as the life line and standard of our faith. It is in the doing of righteousness that speaks of the quality of our faith reflecting Jesus, even as Apostle John wrote, “If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of him,” 1 John 2:29.

God promised that the dry bones would yet live, but He certainly is not going to breath into the dry bones. He breathes into the believer who comes to build with Him. As long as a person stands alone, apart from the stewardship and priesthood of the new covenant, he is broken from Christ and remains a dry bone.

Truth is a sign to manifest Christ, but false knowledge (doctrine) is a sign that a minister wants to skip over Jesus’ commandment to fast track his faith to manifest his desires (aspirations/dreams/visions).

God is addressing the many “dry bones doctrines” that ministers want to insist they can hang onto in this season of cleansing and transition to the stewardship and priesthood of the new covenant.

Ministers have the habit of talking out of both sides of their mouth. While claiming to be all for unity, they teach doctrine that cuts them off from the life of Christ. Each false doctrine is responsible for a flat line reading in the faith of many Christians. Each false doctrine makes a lot of noise as the bones rattle and shake, trying to make themselves come together, but they are just dry bones scattered on the barren sand.

All dry bones doctrines have one thing in common: Ministers want to jump ahead to skip over the doing part that has to do with learning to observe the terms, tools, and priesthood of the new covenant in order to be brought into one house and Body of Christ (unity). Let’s look at four popular doctrines that demonstrate the dry bones fiasco.

Each false doctrine is in fact a brave front ministers put on as they assume the role of leader.  And after years of doing the wrong thing they’ve again put all their cards on the table: I’ve fasted, I’ve received, I’ve had healings, I’ve made declarations, etc. – now what else do I need to do for breakthrough? The Lord has already told him plainly what to do, that they must listen to the steward of this new season, but they pretend they did not hear Him speak.

False doctrine misdirects faith with false knowledge, plundering souls, leaving them destitute of the life of Christ. Is it any wonder that God is rebuking ministers for having taken the Body of Christ into these killing fields?

Ezekiel 37:10-12
10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.

¹¹ Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts.

¹² Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel.

God also is giving a command to the church today. He is calling believers out of the graves of false doctrine where faith was put to sleep. And as faith is dressed with knowledge by God’s new season apostles, believers are again breathed into, and their hearts beat as one with the Father.

Incredibly, at a time when there is so much complaining from believers that they don’t see the signs of unity (life) in their midst, we hear an altogether different sound coming from the restored church. We hear the heartbeat of the Father.

As we see the Lord bring believers into one mind in Christ I am reminded of the prophecy Jesus gave to my husband, Apostle Eric vonAnderseck. The Lord spoke through him of this miracle that we now see coming to pass, saying, “There shall be a unity that is not feigned and a oneness that is not deceitful.”

God has been calling believers from all over the world into one body, into the unity of the faith, and it’s such a lovely sight to see, as Jesus again breaths into His body of believers who have accept His way of stewardship and priesthood.