Red Letters/Black Letters: Day 125: Till all are one

"I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in you; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me." John 17:20-21

Christian Unity is not just some buzzword, at least it shouldn't be. Here we are given a very clear message that it is Jesus's desire that everyone who comes to belief in him would be one. This one should emanate from a connection one to another but also from a connection of all to God and of God to all. And I sit here and think, 'No wonder so many people don't believe in God or Jesus or the church, for that matter.' Jesus believed that our unity would enhance our witness, and our lack of unity would erase our witness, and it seems as if that has been proven to be true. I wonder what went through Jesus's mind when he spoke his prayer in John 17, did he know then what we would do with the world and teachings he gave us? Did he know, sitting there, that our version of his teachings would be splintered into 30,000 some odd shards? Did he pray in vain? Or does his prayer still vibrate through our world, still pulling us into a heretofore unknown reality of unity?

Here we all are, at the beginning of a brand new year, at the beginning of a potential brand new start, and the question we have to wrestle with in this moment and the coming days is: are we working toward Christian Unity? If we are not we need to begin to evaluate how we can. If we are we need to focus on redoubling our efforts to make an impact in the church/world around us. We need less in-fighting and more consensus building. We need less gossip mongers and more solution finders. We need less disagreeable disagreements and more productive board meetings. We need less posturing and more sacrificing. We need less competition and more teamwork. This should be happening within the local church, within local churches, within a single denomination, within multiple denominations. 

Sharing Jesus's name and love should be our main goal, and any unity we can find on the road to that destination needs to be explored.

+ How do you [and/or the church you attend] already promote Christian Unity?

+ How can you work to promote Christian Unity more?

+ If you are not a pastor consider having a conversation with yours about their views and work toward Christian Unity. 

+ If you are a pastor do you have conversations with your leaders about the need for unity?