Before you can see God’s raw power, the Hero, unleashed in your life, you must get one thing in order: you must find a team. The Kingdom of God is a family, not a business. God never intended us to fly solo or to operate outside of godly leadership. He always meant for us to be one unit, moving through life together, side-by-side, shoulder-to-shoulder, and heart-to-heart with others. You were not created to do life alone.
To walk in the fullness of Holy Spirit power in your life, you must be on the right team.
In 1972 the Miami Dolphins made history. According to their fan page, “They are the only team in NFL history to finish a season unbeaten and untied, and then go on to capture a Super Bowl victory that made them world champions.” They won all 14 of their regular-season games, then “won all three post-season games, including Super Bowl VII against the Washington Redskins, to finish 17-0.”
How did the Dolphins achieve such success? They had the perfect combination of offensive and defensive players, experienced coaches, skill, right attitudes, and a passion for the game. They didn’t always execute everything perfectly, but they knew how to work together. They were perfect for each other. The anointed, powerful Christian life works a lot like that ’72 Dolphins squad.
When you come into the family of God, you place yourself under His leadership and authority. In similar ways, when you’re finding the right team here on earth- those people who will be your family, your championship team- you start by placing yourself under the leadership and authority of earthly spiritual fathers and mothers. These spiritual fathers and mothers will be your coaches during your walk with Christ.
You will find these coaches at your local church; they are your pastors, mentors, small group teachers, and other ministry leaders.
After you align yourself with the right coach, you will naturally meet your teammates. Your team is made of other believers in Jesus. Your teammates don’t have to look like you, talk like you, or smell like you. Yet, to function as a team, you do have to be united in heart and purpose, and you must love one another. So, what does this Hero-inspired unity look like?
Unity is not uniformity; it doesn’t need us to mirror one another. No football team would ever win a game if it had eleven quarterbacks on the field at one time. In order to win the game, a team must have lots of different players. Each winning team must have the right mix of people with the right skills for each situation, and they all must be playing at the correct times. In the same way, every person in the Body of Christ needs a team made up of people with different gifts, experiences, and cultures. If our team is to be united and win, we need the wisdom and protection of other people who will guard our blind side as we also guard theirs.
Unity is also different from mere cooperation. People who hate one another can cooperate; we see that happening in politics all the time. Even so, politicians who cooperate know that they are using one another to reach an agreed-upon end. There is no real relationship or loyalty when politicians cooperate. Unity is not like that; unity is more beautiful and more powerful than cooperation because unity doesn’t use other people for its own gain.
Unity with other Christians is not a pipe dream. It’s possible for us to live life together in agreement with one another because we all have one, important thing in common: we are saved by the blood of Christ. Jesus is the great Unifier of the body of Christ. If we live to obey Jesus, to become like Jesus, and to carry out His work on the earth, the things that divide us will become unimportant. More so if we all follow the same playbook- God’s Word, the Bible- we will agree with all of Father’s commands, strategies, and instructions. Unity is a natural result of total agreement with God’s plan.
Living life as a part of this team means focusing on our similarities and celebrating our God-given differences instead of criticizing them. Celebrating others like this becomes easy if we learn to honor them and see them through God’s eyes.
If you are struggling with honoring others or finding your place on your team, I want to challenge you to look at everyone around you through these five factors:
1. God’s word instructs us to honor all people (1 Peter 2:17)
2. Every human being was created in the image of God (Gen. 1:26)
3. Every person is a human being that Jesus died for (John 3:16; Matthew 18:14)
4. God has as much of a call on that other person’s life as He has on your life.
5. Every person has been supernaturally endowed with gifts and talents from Father God
Changing perspective, choosing to obey God’s commandments to view everyone around us as God sees them, will cause honor to flow from our lives naturally. The walls that divide us fall away.
