In Acts 15, two people read the same Bible and pray to the same God. They love God, each other, and have the same Holy Spirit. Yet, they don’t see eye-to-eye on what seems like a minor issue, and huff off in two different directions.

People: It happens. It happens to good people and bad people. It happens at work, school, in politics, hockey games, at home, traffic, and it even happens at church. It happened then, happens now, and will again until the end of the world.

And you know what? It’s okay. 

The passage doesn’t say who was wrong or right. In truth, it’s like the old Dave Mason song: “There ain’t good guys, there ain’t no bad guys; there’s only you and me and we just disagree.” There’s no scandal cited. It’s just a fact. 

But here is what we DO know–the awesome result: Instead of ONE team of messengers going from town to town, now there were TWO teams, covering twice as much ground, reaching twice as many people.

In other words, God used division to produce multiplication. Maybe this is one of the most profound miracles in the Bible. God uses our gifts, our talents, our passions, our brains, AND… our stupidity and our mistakes and our fights and even our sins to get His work done.       

“Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight….” Our kids sing it and so should we. And that diversity includes our personalities and our personal philosophies and ideas.

Separate ways… It really is okay. 

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Ever met well-intentioned people that want to make this Christianity thing just a big hassle? They lay all their trips on you–all their personal, self-made, contentious scruples. They have a long to-do list; and it’s do, do, do, do, do; basically a lot of do-do. 

It’s like the billionaire who shared how he made his fortune. He said, “I was born dirt poor. So I saved up enough money to buy an apple for a nickel. I polished that apple all night and turned around and sold it for a dime. The next day I took that dime and bought 2 apples. I repeated the process over and over again until I made $1.60. Then my Father-in-Law died and left us a billion dollars.” 

That’s a bit like us. Jesus died to leave us an inheritance and we still want to earn it by polishing. So Paul wrote this to a church in the ancient city of Galatia: So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law… For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace. Paul’s bottom line: We are either growing in grace or backsliding into legalism. 

See, love beats law every time. It’s like this dad reading Dr Seuss to his 5-year-old son who interrupted him, saying, “Daddy, I love you.” That’s great, Joe-Joe, I love you too. Two minutes later, again: “Daddy, I love you.” “That’s great Joe-Joe, I love you too.” Finally, Joseph stands up, hugs his dad, and smothers his runny nose into my chest and says, “Daddy, I love you so much, I just got to do something about it!”

Love beats law every time. It’s so much more inspirational and motivational. Human nature will always find ways around the law. WC Fields was reading a Bible on his deathbed. Someone asked him, why are you all of a sudden reading that? “Looking for loopholes, friend, looking for loopholes.” Humans will always try to get around any kind of law. But love inspires us to do more than the law ever could. So remember this simple thing today and be inspired: Jesus really does love you. 

I remember one of my very first church experiences. The preacher was bashing people he called “heathens” and “pagans.” I thought that was pretty yucky. So someone once asked me, “What do YOU call people who aren’t Christians?” Easy: I wouldn’t tar and feather them with pejorative labels. Honestly, I simply call them normal.

Seriously, we’re the ones who aren’t normal. We obey this 2000-year-old (infinitely-older, actually) Jesus-Person who tells us to do some pretty abnormal things-like, love our enemies? Please! Then, we believe this thing called “grace” which means God loves us no matter what? What?

Then God gives us all these stories in the Bible that illustrate His amazing abnormal love for us. And they’re crazy. Like, God uses a murderer on the run as a fugitive to deliver Ten Commandments, and one of those laws, of course, is “Do Not Murder.” Moses’ face is plastered in every Post Office in Egypt and he’s the guy God uses to deliver the “do not murder” message. Is this not nuts?

See, it’s TOTALLY NORMAL to hate our enemies, to put ourselves first, and get even. But turn the other cheek, go the extra mile, give people your shirt if they steal your coat, “rejoice” when people talk bad about you; that’s crazy-talk, and that’s what we’re supposed to be all about.

So I don’t call people “pagans” or “heathens.” I call them perfectly normal. And I love them and I like to hang around them as much as I can, because I hope for opportunities to share my craziness with them, so that they can get crazy too. 

I’ve been praying this lately: “God, teach me to trust you when what I see contradicts what you say.”

The word “empirical” is all about information gained by means of observation. I like that. It makes sense. But the Bible teaches us that we can’t always rely on our senses; that a relationship with God requires a deeper source for true information called faith. And the Bible says, “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” Why? Because at the heart of faith is that warmer word: trust.

So when my first impulse the other day at a funeral was to see what looked like a life all over, I had to challenge that thought. What does God say about death? Oh, that’s right, “It’s been swallowed up in victory” because the reality of the resurrection is what’s really real, not the casket I see.

So, applying this concept in every area of life, like say the economy we’re in, maybe a prayer like this will help us grow in the essential area of trust: “God, teach me to trust you when what I see contradicts what you say.”