Sunday: Answering Christ’s Prayer for Unity
John 17 contains Jesus’ great intercessory prayer. It reveals what was on His mind at that momentous hour of earth’s history.
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Read John 17:9-11, 20-24. What was Jesus’ heartfelt longing? Why was this so important? How did the disciples’ relationship to one another demonstrate genuine Christian faith? See Acts 4:32-33.
The “oneness,” or unity, of the disciples prepared their hearts for the reception of the fullness of the Holy Spirit’s power. Christ’s prayer for His church was fulfilled. They surrendered their differences. Love prevailed. Strife was banished.
“Now the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul; neither did anyone say that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common. And with great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And great grace was upon them all” (Acts 4:32-33, NKJV).
This passage links the disciples having “one heart and one soul” with their “great power” in witnessing. In the challenging circumstances of first century Jerusalem at a time when Christianity was unpopular, these committed Christians shared their resources. They supported one another. They laid aside their personal ambitions. Their unselfish attitudes and generosity of spirit prepared them to receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit’s power for witnessing.
“Notice that it was after the disciples had come into perfect unity, when they were no longer striving for the highest place that the Spirit was poured out. They were of one accord. All differences had been put away.”-Ellen G. White, Counsels for the Church, p. 98.
Why is the fulfillment of Jesus’ prayer in John 17 so important for our church? What does Jesus’ desire for the unity of the first century church reveal about His desire for our church today?
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We must first petition, humbly and sincerely, for the Holy Spirit to work in us to transform our hearts and renew our minds; and when this is a corporate endeavor,God follows it up with Holy Spirit power for mission. How our Father must be longing for a transformed Church, so that He can present to the world an empowered Church that speaks with the authority of the Word of Jesus Christ!!! In this time when we are Divinely characterized as "wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked....and (feel we)have need of nothing", with no rewarding affirmation, our Father is calling for sincere,committed and persistent petitioners of Divine anointing. Could we be it?
Yes, Hurford, we can be it. By God's lavish grace, we can be the kind of stones God longs to fit into His temple. We may have been 'rough stones, cut out from the quarry of the world by the great cleaver of truth,' but we are in God's workshop now, He is able and willing to square, brandish and polish us, and He won't give up until His character is fully developed in us, or until we turn away from Him. I long to display the qualities of these men whom Jesus called out of the world, just like us. I long to have a 'conscience void of offense, I long to put a Smile on my Saviour's face for a change. The only thing in the way of my progress is SELF! Dear Father, please help me to die daily, so that not I, but Christ be seen, been known, be heard.'
Unit is very essentially in any institution.The prosperity of church depends basically on unity.Because without unit ,there wouldnt be any peace making or building.
Jesus prayer in John 17 portrays unity that as a church we need to learn.We are one family in Christ Jesus.
It is very important that we as christians become one in christ, just in the same way that christ disciples became one with one another, in so doing we can allow the Holy Spirit to fall on us. We ought to knows that satan's motive is that we continue life NOT understanding what unity is all about so that he can 'pick us' one by one and to destroy us, something that he has been succeeding with for centuries. With unity and the power of prayer we are all equiped with the covering of christ. He fills us with the Holy Spirit and with our attitudes in the vine yard we become a mighty army right here on earth to aid in christ soon coming.
In some way or another, we've all experienced an atmosphere where harmony or oneness was not present. When I was a young child, home with my parents and 5 siblings, we had family meetings. (Not many, but we had a few.) We were able get some things off of our chest. At the end of the meeting, we felt better as individuals and as a family. Some things changed, some didn't. But we were able to express our feelings. In our church's, we must do the same thing, come together as a family and discuss our problems and concerns. What we do, is ignore the problem and hope it goes away. The Bible doesn't give that counsel. Eph. 4:26 counsels us to handle the situation before the sun sets. We let many sunsets take place and have gotten to the point where unity is not of importance. We say it is, but our actions speaks something totally different. That's sad because we know God is not about discord and confusion. To be 100% honest, we are entertaining Satan. When things aren't handled as Christ admonishes us to, Satan is given time to split our homes, churches, relationships and etc. I'm disappointed that we don't see the trickery of Satan earlier than we do, if we do. As Christians, we must be better watchmen. Satan is out to seek and destroy all he can and He's going after God's chosen full force, as if he has no time to spare, in fact he doesn't have one minute to spare. He has a whole world to destroy. As God's chosen, we can't get out and get His other chosen ones, because of disunity, disharmony and no oneness of faith, heart, or mind.
A point is made in the lesson, that where oneness/unity abides, there's power. If we came together in our homes, our churches and etc., Satan wouldn't have a chance to disconnect us. When problems and situations rise, we as a people must take time to resolve them. No one is perfect by any means, a lack of unity is the reason why our churches aren't filled beyond capacity. We lack power and we appear not to want the power that heals past and present wounds.
We've taken our eyes off of God and now we're only concerned about pleasing self in God's House. Let's be determined to please Him at all times. doing this, we can't go wrong. When problems rise, be determined to handle them immediately. We must get it together people, Christ is on His way back!
Our lord made a prayer indicating how hopeless it would be for his church if she would show no need of the divine intervention;remember we can virtually do nothing of ourselves without holy spirit being in our midst.
We will be staging ourselves pliable to the mischiefs of satan. Visualise yourself in a staff with each staff member insisting that his view be taken and worse still, everyone seeing himself better than his fellows. This is my appeal to our church worldwide; let us lay aside our differences and focus on adifying the nody of christ.
Jesus wants to use us as his hands and feet and to use the church to change the world. He cannot use us if we aren't unified and in agreement with one another. If we do not have a unified message then we will be easily divided and implode and then we will be teaching mixed messages and dividing others as a result not to mention causing mass confusion
Oh how we must know that Christ has chosen us to be co-Laborers with Him in evangelizing this dying world with the Gospel of Eternal Salvation found only in Jesus. Jesus also gave the set of instructions required, and when followed, we will receive the manifestation of His power by the Holy Spirit that will empowered us to fullfill His purpose in warning the world of the Time Of Trouble that is looming on the herizon and the Soon Coming of Jesus. I believe the Remnant of the Woman's seed will again be manifested in these final hours of this world's history right before probation closes. We must be in one accord and united in the Will of God, for us to become qualified members of the Remnant that will carry forward the Last Day message which is the Third Angel's message. Let us strive with ernest and sincere hearts to be co-Laborers with Jesus in finishing this task and enter into His Sabbath rest forevermore. Cheers!!!
unity is an essential aspect in the church of God more especially in a people that have been sent to go out and preach the word of God to all nations.
There no way we can be able t go out and preach if unity is not part of our priorities and without unity we've got to know that we then do not have a church.
Above it all Christ is coming not in many different clouds but in one cloud to take all of us which is why we need to learn to live in oneness now.
We must be in the world but live as God wants us to live not to please the world arround us.