Welcome back my friends, it is time for you and me to get our minds aligned with the

truth of God and today's truth comes from Romans chapter 15 verses 5 through 7.

This passage comes at the end of an extended section where the Apostle Paul has been giving

us instructions about how we are to relate with each other at our varying degrees of

faith. Some of us have stronger faith, some of us have weaker faith, some of us are new

to the faith, some of us are veterans in the faith, so to speak, and he is driving home

the point that all of us are to be working for the building up of each other to the glory

of God. And here in verses 5 through 7, he says this,

May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one

another in accord with Christ Jesus that together you may with one voice glorify the God

and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed

you for the glory of God. Then do you see Paul's desire for Christians is that we live in unity.

He calls it harmony in this that we may with one voice glorify the God and Father of

our Lord Jesus Christ. So in this sense, the differences we often experience through denominations

and the divisions those things can cause is not a good thing. If it disrupts unity, if

it disrupts our ability to fellowship with one another in a way that enables us to glorify

God with one voice and then something's wrong with that picture. But in order for us to better

understand this, I want us to look at the form in which this statement is is given to us.

Verse 5, Paul says, May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony

with one another. He's actually praying here. This he's revealing something he is asking the Lord

to do for them. And he says, May the God of endurance and the God of encouragement

grant us to live in such harmony. Now, why would he describe God as a God of endurance and a

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