Good morning. God’s design is for one flock. There is one flock, and there is one shepherd who guards, guides, nurtures, and loves that one flock. Somehow we have missed this point of truth.
Division within the Body of Christ, the “flock” under the care of Jesus who is the true Shepherd, is not God’s idea.
After praying for unity among those disciples who had walked with Him, Jesus continues His prayer: “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 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.
Did you catch the heart of Jesus’ prayer, 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.?
We, all who are within the Body of Christ, have come to a place of comfort with the idea of denominations and differences. Our thoughts may be, “We need all of our various voices to reach such a varied world with a vast variety of needs.” That is wrong. Look around, that idea isn’t working. Our vast and varied world needs to hear one voice, and that is God’s voice, and upon hearing that One voice: Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
The differences that divide Christ-believers are not of God. Our separation from one another was never His idea, never expressed in scripture as His plan. The divisions that separate us are man-made. They exist because we refuse to yield our opinions and agendas in order to submit to the expressed will of God.
Never in the Bible are we told to create unity. God spoke through the apostle Paul in Ephesians 4:2-3 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to preserve the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. It is the Spirit of God who provides unity among believers, and it is up to us to preserve that unity, to keep it in place.
It is not God’s command to the Body of Christ that we invent unity. It is God’s command that we acknowledge, keep, honor, and rejoice in the unity He provides.
Could we ask ourselves, individually and collectively within our separate groups, what can I (we) do to promote and ensure the unity of the Body that our Lord prayed fervently for God to ensure?
Vern