| Yesterday's Bible Study |
Today's verse is taken from Jesus's High Priestly Prayer, His final prayer before His arrest and crucifixion. Jesus prays for unity among future believers, that the world would know that He was the Messiah, and that they would experience His love. Today, we will consider the importance of unity and love among Christians.
Unity means being as one. At the beginning of the verse, Jesus uses His relationship with God as an example of unity; He is in God and God is in Him. Through this oneness, they are in complete unity. In much the same way, Christians can be in unity with each other by being one with God first. When each of us seeks God and dwells in Him, we will naturally be in unity because our desires will be confirmed to those of the Lord.
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To be honest, when I look at this picture of perfect unity and then at our own religious institutions today, I get kind of discouraged. There are so many churches at odds with each other, disputes among Christians, and more. What have we missed? Of course there will be different interpretations and ideas about secondary issues that the Bible does not perfectly clarify--but when our ideas about God are held onto more fervently than God Himself, division will be inevitable. But when we focus on God above all else, unity happens.
The solution is to embrace love. That doesn't mean we refrain from standing up for anything, but rather, that we prevent disagreements from dividing us by acknowledging them and then choosing to build each other up. As long as Jesus is placed at the center of everything, our diversity will not lead to division. Instead, it will be evidence of the powerful, unifying love of Jesus Christ.
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