As we are going into this new year, I felt unity was placed on my heart. I was having a good conversation with one of my friends that attended Passion Conference and he asked me, “what do you think helped increase your faith since freshman year of college?” That question got me thinking because I’m not the best at self-reflecting, and that is a question that definitely requires some self-reflection. So, as I was thinking about it, I realized it had a lot more to do with my heart than me “being a Christian.” What I mean by this is not that I immediately decided to act like a better Christian just because I was a “Christian now.”

Rich Wilkerson said it best, “it’s about heart transformation not behavior modification.” I am currently reading a book about unity that talks about how the church and Christians need to come back together as one, just how God intended it to be. Yet, as I was reading the scriptures Francis Chan placed in the book, I got a revelation – to have unity with each other, we must first have unity within ourselves.

How can we begin to even fathom becoming a unified front as Christians if so many of us are not unified in ourselves? If we are claiming that Jesus is at the center of our lives, that he is the most important thing, yet we don’t act like it and have no good works to show for it, then is He really at the center of your life? Or are you lying to yourself? How can we be a unified person if I say, ‘Yes Jesus I give you my life!’ and act as though we do not know Him?

“If we say we have fellowship with Him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth”  -1 John 1:6

Another word for fellowship is togetherness.  So, if we are together with Him – who is Light, then we cannot also be in darkness.

For “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all” – 1 John 1:5

Therefore, we ourselves cannot be of both light and dark because there is disunity between our spirit and our actions. This is the problem in our culture today; we think that it is possible for us to live in sin and still be walking as Children of Light. This is not to say that we will never slip up, or that if we do slip up then we are no longer in Jesus. That is what the Enemy wants you to think.  The Bible straight up tells us:

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” -Romans 3:23

But there is a difference between slipping up and living in or practicing a lifestyle of sin.  We know that we are going to sin, we were born sinners.  There has never been anybody that has lived a perfect and blameless life besides Jesus. Because of this, He was able to be the perfect and pure sacrifice we all needed. And as a result, His perfection is the reason we don’t have to place the expectation of perfection on ourselves.

But yet, too many of us are in this comfortable Christian lifestyle – where we are living in darkness while saying we worship a God of light.  Too many of us just think that believing is enough, yet we are called to have a faith consisting of zeal; great energy or enthusiasm. 

Darkness cannot flow from a heart governed by the Spirit of God, similar to how fresh water and salt water cannot flow from the same stream.  Do not be double minded, for this will lead to distress, anxiety, and disorder in your heart and in your life.  Instead, be united with the mind of Christ, as a bride is united to her bridegroom.  We are His bride and He is our bridegroom, and we are one with Him.  You will be truly united within when your heart, mind and soul is attached to its true vine.  Your body may be on earth, but your heart is led by the thoughts of heaven.  You will find not only unity, but wellness in your soul when you stay attached to your life source, asking Him for less of yourself and more of Him.  It is so much better this way.

I encourage you to start tending to the soil of your heart, because what you tend to is what you will grow.  What weeds need to be pulled? What needs to be watered, or maybe exposed to the sunlight?  The most productive thing you can ever do is to let your soul be nourished by the One who created you.  When you do this, He will lavish His love on you and unite Himself close to you, guiding your steps.  Don’t take part in lukewarm Christianity; you will miss so much of what God has in store for you. Become unified with the one who created you, not the world that is molding you.

“The one who says he remains in Him should walk just as He walked” -1 John 2:6

 Walk in unity with Jesus and see how beautiful life truly is.

Chance Huff, a Niceville, Florida native, is a Senior at Georgia Tech University where he plays baseball. A huge fan of The Office and all things food, you can find him enjoying time with friends, family (including fiancee Maia, brother Christian and sister-in-law, Sadie), and encouraging people toward Jesus.