According to the world, unity is keeping the peace. The world is satisfied if we agree to disagree, get along, keep it non-violent, sign treaties, and generally keep our hands and opinions to ourselves. This pursuit of “unity” reveals our human hearts are so willing to settle, when Jesus has something better than we could imagine.
Jesus prays a bold prayer in the garden on the night of his crucifixion. He doesn’t pray boldly purely for the sake of being bold. He prays because he is fully aware of what God can do. Jesus prays that all of us may be one, but he goes even further to define what he means by this unity: “just as you are in me and I am in you” (John 17:21b, NIV). While it’s hard to wrap our minds around the separate, but oneness of the Trinity, we know that God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are the most perfect example of unity that we can find. We cannot grasp the gravity of this oneness this side of Heaven, but we can understand that this kind of unity is unlike anything we’ve ever seen.
Jesus prays, “I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (John 17:22-23, NIV). Jesus prays for complete unity—that there would be no divisions among us. He prays for such unity between us, himself, and the Father that we would reflect the love of Jesus to the world.
It can be so easy to get discouraged by people who walk away from Jesus because we can obviously see that they never knew the real Jesus, but we have to ask ourselves: Would they have walked away if we were living out the unity that Jesus prayed for?
Reflection/Discussion Question: What are your initial thoughts when you read about the kind of unity Jesus prayed for?
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