Resources/Articles
Unity Yields Faith
“Neither pray I for these alone,
but for them also which shall believe on Me
through their word;
That they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me,
and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us:
that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me.”
John 17:20
Shortly before He would be delivered into the hands of lawless men to be crucified, Jesus made a plea for unity. He prayed that those who the Father had given Him would be unified as they were. He likewise prayed that all those who would believe on Him through their preaching would experience the oneness that He and the Father shared.
Notice the CEV translation of v. 21: “I want all of them to be one with each other, just as I ma one with You and You are one with Me. I also want them to be one with Us. Then the people of the world will believe that You sent Me.”
Have you considered the message that we preach to the world when we are one?
Jesus prays for togetherness among His people and affirms that when this is the case (v. 21), people will believe the Father has sent Him. When unity and oneness are absent, it severely affects the belief that others have in Jesus being God’s only begotten Son
Division doesn’t simply mean that you and I have a problem. A lack of unity says to others that Jesus Christ was not sent from heaven to die for the sins of humanity. It proclaims that the promise Jesus made to build His church was fraudulent and that death prevailed. On the other hand, when we are a cohesive unit, we boldly announce to the world that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, who was sent from the Father in heaven.
A unified body of Christians is confirmation that the chief cornerstone - Jesus Christ - was laid in Zion, just as Isaiah prophesied in Isaiah 28:16, and living stones have been added from the day of Pentecost until this present day, of which, I am one. Let us be united on the basis of truth and let this be the message that we preach to the world.
