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Choose Your Union - Part 1 - The Labor Union

by Jerry Ousley  
8/31/2012 / Christian Living

I heard a little story that asked the question, "How many union men does it take to screw in a light bulb?" The answer was, "Fifteen; you okay with that?!" Of course this is a pun aimed at trying to prove that our labor unions of today are bossy, forceful and out of control. Our labor unions in the world of employment aren't the subject of our lesson today. I belonged to a union for about one month once. In order to work at that place it was required that after your initial ninety days that you had to join the union and pay membership dues. All I ever really heard from the employees of that company was how that, when you became a member of the union the supervisors could no longer push you around. To be honest with you, I didn't see much pushing around taking place. In fact, as long as an employee had a good attendance record and did their job, there were no problems. I'm not speaking against unions mind you, but just relating my own personal (although short) experience.

There are basically two unions in the spiritual world and we are a member of one or the other. 2 Corinthians 6:14-18 talks about being unequally paired together. The picture is that of two work animals during the days of the Apostles. To efficiently plow the land the animals had to be paired so that they were closely similar in size and strength. If they weren't then one of the animals would wind up doing all the work, exhausting itself too soon, while the other struggled to keep up. It was a formula for disaster, making the farmer's job equally as hard.

The passage of scripture goes on to say that as believers in Jesus Christ, we are to be careful who we are paired up with; whom we have fellowship and communion with, and states that we are to be separate and "come out from among them." Both the words "communion" and "fellowship" are derived from the same Greek word, "koinonia (koy-nohn-ee'-ah)" and literally mean fellowship, association, community, communion, joint participation and even refer to the physical relationship between husband and wife.

These two unions are: The labor union of the earth and Communion with God. We all belong to one of these two unions whether we want to acknowledge it or not. The labor union of the world is headed up by the union boss, the devil. It is without doubt a true labor union. The Bible tells us in Romans 6:23 that the earnings of sin is death, while the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ.

According to this verse of scripture we must work to die. We must be a slave to the devil in order to work ourselves to death. Unless we have become the property of God, membership is required. In fact we have all been members of this union at one time or another. Until we came to Jesus Christ we were full-fledged members of the labor union of the world.

The dues of this union are extremely expensive. In fact the yield on our investment amounts to zero dollars. Its members will not get out alive because the payment for our labor is death.

Now I don't know too many people who are actually proud to be a part of this union. Most will deny any membership affiliations with it. But the fact remains, that unless we have come to Jesus Christ in true heart-felt repentance and recanted this world labor union, becoming a member of God's union, we are caught in its grips. It will not let go. There is no where we can go except into the arms of Jesus Christ to escape it. We won't get out of it alive. In fact, when we come to Jesus Christ the spiritual transaction that takes place is that in spirit we do die. We become dead to the world and alive in Jesus. By accepting Him we have been crucified with Him and resurrected in newness of life in Christ. We have become free from the labor union of the world and our membership has been transformed into the union of koinonia fellowship and come-union with Christ!

Jerry D. Ousley is the author of ?Soul Challenge?, ?Soul Journey?, ?Ordeal?, ?The Spirit Bread Daily Devotional and his first novel ?The Shoe Tree.? Visit our website at spiritbread.com to download these and more completely free of charge.

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