To arrest a possible breakup, you need to talk about the threat before the root of bitterness grows. Deal with it quickly. Like cancer, it must be handled as soon as it is discovered because any delay only allows the cancer to grow. 

Jesus’s Prayer for the Church
Toward the end of Jesus’s life on earth, he prayed that his people may be united. His prayer was deep. He said, “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me” (John 17:20–23).
Can any words be more sublime? Yet, you only have to be a Christian for a short time before you realize that churches suffer from disunity and splits after seasons of peace as surely as valleys follow rolling hills. Often, you can see the downward spiral coming from a distance. In this article, I point out ten ways in which you can fracture the church to which you belong. Most of these ways can be caused by anyone. The last few are normally caused by church leaders. If any of these describe your actions or your attitude, may God give you grace to amend your ways for the sake of Christ who desires his people to be truly united.
1. Self-Centeredness
If you join a church primarily because of what you can get from others, you will soon be full of complaints about “lack of love” in the church. Your grumbling is because of a failure to get from the church what you want. It is as James put it, “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel” (James 4:1–2). Church is a place to love others and to be loved, to give and take.
2. Impatience with Others
Christians come in all shapes and sizes, and so the church is very much like the human family. Some are hard workers while others are lazy. Some are fast learners while others never seem to grasp the most basic concepts of life. The process of sanctification takes time. If you fail to realize this, you will become impatient and grumpy. You will be complaining about the very people you are meant to exhibit Christian patience towards. That is why the apostle Paul said, “I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:1–3). Learn to be patient with others.
3. Importing Fights from Elsewhere
Sometimes your own church can be peaceful, but churches across town or in another country may have locked horns over an issue that is far removed from you. However, because you are connected to what is happening there through friends or relatives, you begin to agitate for a stance in your church that others see no need for. This has become common, especially with the advent of the internet. In the process, you brew a storm in a teacup and are seen as a mere troublemaker crying, “Wolf! Wolf!” where there is no wolf.
4. Unresolved Issues
Another way in which fights are imported is when you live with unresolved issues. You think that by changing churches or shutting out some people in the church you have closed that chapter of your life, but you have not. That grudge becomes like a bitter root that causes you to be toxic. Mole hills will become mountains by your opinion. People around you fail to understand your overreactions to issues in the church. The Bible warns, “Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no ‘root of bitterness’ springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled” (Heb. 12:14–15). This root of bitterness is usually because of unresolved issues. Learn to resolve issues instead of burying them and leaving them to fester. They can be disruptive, if not deadly.
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Though our outer-self is wasting away, our bodies decaying and dying, nonetheless in Christ we have true life, life everlasting, and unending spiritual life. God has not left us for dead but has sent his Son to enter into death on our behalf, and in his resurrection, pull each of those for whom he has died out of the grave with him! His life is now our life and since Christ will never die again, neither shall we. Even our own physical death will only be but a momentary intermission in the now unending eternal drama of living life in the Spirit.

“You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.”– Romans 8:9-10
We have seen that to be a Christian is to be a person who is spiritually found in Christ, which also means that the Holy Spirit (also referred to by Paul as the Spirit of God or the Spirit of Christ) now dwells in, or indwells, the believer. And that word, dwell, is an important verb to consider. As Leon Morris points out, “the Spirit is not an occasional visitor; he takes up residence in God’s people.”[1] Which is an incredibly comforting truth to consider – God will literally never leave us.
We cannot lose our salvation and we cannot lose the presence of the Holy Spirit. Paul says here in verse 9 that “anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him,” meaning, without the Spirit of Christ you do not belong to Christ. But if you do have the Spirit then you do belong to Christ. And Christ himself promised, “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out… this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day” (John 6:37, 39). Do you see? To have the Spirit dwell within you means to have Christ forever!
It also means Christ is in you! Do you see that in verse 10? “But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” Again, I’m stunned at the depth of Paul’s Trinitarian theology. In verse 9 he’s speaking about the Spirit within us and now, in verse 10, he says that’s the same thing as having Christ within us. Next time Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormons approach your front door, ask them to read Romans 8:9-10 with you and show them the truth of the Trinity. John Chrysostom, the “Golden-tongued” preacher of the early church remarked that “Paul is not saying here that the Spirit is Christ but is showing rather that anyone who has the Spirit has Christ as well. For where the Spirit is, there Christ is also. Wherever one person of the Trinity is present, the whole Trinity is present too. For the Trinity is undivided and has a perfect unity in itself.”[2]
Consider too the insight from Saint Augustine that “The Holy Spirit is in a certain sense the ineffable communion of the Father and the Son…
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It is understandable for the authors to only briefly mention these miraculous events as they point towards, support, and otherwise affirm and magnify the singular person of which each of the gospels is about—Jesus. 

One of the strangest few verses in all of the Bible, describes the circumstances around the death of Christ. Matthew, in the midst of a relatively unbroken flow of narrative on the crucifixion of Jesus, interrupts the flow to describe the after-effects of Jesus’ death.
 And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. 
51 At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split 52 and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. 53 They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people.(NIV Matthew 27:50-53)
There is quite a lot here to unpack, but there is (maybe somewhat surprisingly) very little detail given. I’ve preached on the resurrection power of Jesus in the past, but have not preached on these few verses specifically. The power of the resurrection is often thought of in terms of spiritual power, or in terms of life-giving power. While these are all aspects of the power of the resurrection that are rightly thought of, the first effect of the death of Jesus that the gospel of Matthew brings up is the tremendous visible signs which accompanied that moment.
Below are a few terrific Christian thinkers, theologians, martyrs, and commenters on this passage. At the end I’ll add a few of my own comments.
“Verse 52. And the graves were opened. Graves, or sepulchers, were most commonly made, among the Jews, in solid rocks, or in caves of rocks. The rending of the rocks, therefore, would lay them open. The graves were opened by this earthquake, but the dead in them did not rise till after his resurrection.
And many bodies of the saints—arose. Of course, it is not known who these were, nor what became of them. It is probable that they were persons who had recently died, and they appear to have been known in Jerusalem. At least, had the ancient saints risen, they would not have been known, and would not so soon have been credited as those who had recently died.
Which slept. Which had died. The death of saints is often called sleep, Da 12:2; 1 Co 15:18; 1 Th 4:15.”
Albert Barnes
The graves were opened. This matter is not related so fully as our curiosity would wish; for the scripture was not intended to gratify that; it should seem, that same earthquake that rent the rocks, opened the graves, and many bodies of saints which slept, arose. Death to the saints is but the sleep of the body, and the grave the bed it sleeps in; they awoke by the power of the Lord Jesus, and (v. 53) came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into Jerusalem, the holy city, and appeared unto many. Now here
(1.) We may raise many enquiries concerning it, which we cannot resolve: as, [1.] Who these saints were, that did arise. Some think, the ancient patriarchs, that were in such care to be buried in the land of Canaan, perhaps in the believing foresight of the advantage of this early resurrection. Christ had lately proved the doctrine of the resurrection from the instance of the patriarchs (ch. xxii. 32), and here was a speedy confirmation of his argument. Others think, these that arose were modern saints, such as had been Christ in the flesh, but died before him; as his father Joseph, Zecharias, Simeon, John Baptist, and others, that had been known to the disciples, while they lived, and therefore were the fitter to be witnesses to them in an apparition after. What if we should suppose that they were the martyrs, who in the Old-Testament times had sealed the truths of God with their blood, that were thus dignified and distinguished? Christ particularly points at them as his forerunners, ch. xxiii. 35. And we find (Rev. xx. 4, 5), that those who were beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, arose before the rest of the dead. Sufferers with Christ shall first reign with him. [2.] It is uncertain whether (as some think) they arose to life, now at the death of Christ, and disposed of themselves elsewhere, but did not go into the city till after his resurrection; or whether (as others think), though their sepulchres (which the Pharisees had built and varnished, ch. xxiii. 29), and so made remarkable, were shattered now by the earthquake (so little did God regard that hypocritical respect), yet they did not revive and rise till after the resurrection; only, for brevity-sake, it is mentioned here, upon the mention of the opening of the graves, which seems more probable. [3.] Some think that they arose only to bear witness of Christ’s resurrection to those to whom they appeared, and, having finished their testimony, retired to their graves again. But it is more agreeable, both to Christ’s honour and theirs, to suppose, though we cannot prove, that they arose as Christ did, to die no more, and therefore ascended with him to glory. Surely on them who did partake of his first resurrection, a second death had no power. [4.] To whom they appeared (not to all the people it is certain, but to many), whether enemies or friends, in what manner they appeared, how often, what they said and did, and how they disappeared, are secret things which belong not to us; we must not covet to be wise above what is written. The relating of this matter so briefly, is a plain intimation to us, that we must not look that way for a confirmation of our faith; we have a more sure word of prophecy.
(2.) Yet we may learn many good lessons from it. [1.] That even those who lived and died before the death and resurrection of Christ, had saving benefit thereby, as well as those who have lived since; for he was the same yesterday that he is to-day, and will be for ever, Heb. xiii. 8. [2.] That Jesus Christ, by dying, conquered, disarmed, and disabled, death. These saints that arose, were the present trophies of the victory of Christ’s cross over the powers of death, which he thus made a show of openly. Having by death destroyed him that had the power of death, he thus led captivity captive, and gloried in these re-taken prizes, in them fulfilling that scripture, I will ransom them from the power of the grave. [3.] That, in virtue of Christ’s resurrection, the bodies of all the saints shall, in the fulness of time, rise again. This was an earnest of the general resurrection at the last day, when all that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God. And perhaps Jerusalem is therefore called here the holy city, because the saints, at the general resurrection, shall enter into the new Jerusalem; which will be indeed what the other was in name and type only, the holy city, Rev. xxi. 2. [4.] That all the saints do, by the influence of Christ’s death, and in conformity to it, rise from the death of sin to the life of righteousness. They are raised up with him to a divine and spiritual life; they go into the holy city, become citizens of it, have their conversation in it, and appear to many, as persons not of this world.
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