Life in Christ leads to simplicity.  It begins with addition and subtraction.  We confess our sin and it is subtracted.  We add to our faith, virtue, then knowledge, then temperance, then patience, then brotherly kindness, and then charity.  We avoid places that are the occasion of sin and stop practices that are sinful.  We start going to church, reading the bible, and learn different forms of prayer.  We begin a ministry.  By faith we mortify the deeds of the flesh and by faith, receive the Holy Spirit. It's simple mathematics.   Yet it is all far from simple.  But if we persevere God begins to simplify our relationships and practices.  He takes us into the quiet and we learn the art of listening, listening to the still, small voice of God.  All the preliminary work, all the additions and subtractions have as their goal, simplicity and oneness.  “I in them,and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one.”  Jn17:23

    God may upset our prayer time.  He may remove a ministry.  He may take away our times of bible study.  He may ask you to step out in faith.  He may alter all our habits to separate us to the gospel.  Natural relationships, customary practices, normal routines may all be altered: yet the goal never changes: Obedience, stillness, silence, simplicity and oneness.

    Faith leads us to God, to all of the blessings of the Spirit, to health and prosperity.  Why most don't get there is the consequence of bad teaching (the blind shall lead the blind and both shall fall into the ditch}, business and distractions, and an inability to yield to the Spirit of God.  All the preliminary work, all the additions and subtractions, has as their goal to be one with God.  Unless we run the race to come in first, to prepare like an athlete, to be obedient like a soldier, to be patient like a farmer(2Tim2:1-6), we will not succeed no matter how good our intentions are and all the good reasons we have to neglect the Spirit for natural, worldly considerations.  Your decisions may not please your family, your church, or your friends, but if your decisions are in obedience to the Spirit, they will please God.

    St. Paul was separated unto the gospel.(Rm1:1)  That my friends is where faith leads.  It leads to simplicity and oneness in Christ and in God.  At some point, if you have done your homework, made the additions and subtractions, God will begin to take you up to him in a way that is entirely meant  just for you to be with him and Jesus prayer, that they may be made perfect in one, will come to pass.  But if you choose to be stubborn and willful, if you choose to dismiss the still, small voice of God, if you choose to follow the way of common sense instead of the leading of the Spirit, you may not reach the finish line in spite of common opinion and all your good intentions.  The goal is simple.  “I and the Father are one”

amen