The absence or presence of unity has everything to do with the absence or presence of God in the midst of his people.

Dr Tony Evans says there's a direct link between how God relates to believers and how those

believers relate to each other. When God sees unity, God brings blessing. This is

the alternative with Dr. Tony Evans, author, speaker, senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship

in Dallas, Texas, and president of the Urban Alternative.

Dr Evans, it seems like no matter how much we talk about the value of diversity, our differences still separate us.

You know, economic differences, cultural differences, political

differences, racial differences. Is the answer just to figure out ways to put up with each

other or can we really hope for something better?

Well they have a major theme in the scripture is unity. In fact it is so important that

God will literally back away from a person, a family, a church, or a society that insist on illegitimate disunity.

Unity is not loss of uniqueness.

Unity is oneness of purpose. It is where there is a common goal to be

reached and everybody is shooting toward that goal. And so just like in football where you have

different positions on the field they're unique

but there's only one goal line that they're trying to move that ball too.

Well the goal line is the purpose of God to bring glory to God through the advancement of its kingdom.

We have uniquenesses as individuals from our family backgrounds in our church, your styles of worship,

even in our political perspectives.

But if those differences can be pulled together

toward God's goal, then what we can do

is be excited about the different things everybody's bringing to the

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