Make Us One
Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one." — John 17:11
In Jesus' final moments before the cross, He declared what His sacrifice would accomplish — not only the breakthroughs of individual faith, but a healed and interconnected union with God and with one another. One family. One Body. One Bride.
There are many congregations in our city. There is only one Church.
In an age that prizes individualism and private goals, we can find ourselves unknowingly independent, disconnected from the very thing that makes God's reality visible to the world around us.
Contending for the unity of the Spirit is hard. It requires humility, vulnerability, and a deep conviction that we actually belong to one another. It means saying no to pride — the posture that believes our stream is superior to our brother's — and to insecurity, which keeps our faith inward and small. Both isolate us. Both shrink the Church.
But what if we are actually one? Paul calls it a divine mystery, like what happens when a husband and wife become one flesh (Ephesians 5:32). We are called to union. But we will never experience union without first passionately seeking unity: not agreement over worship style or secondary doctrine, but the courage to belong to one another completely.
We come today to lay down every spirit of competition that looks more like the accuser than our Advocate.
Let us pray:
Father, break our hearts over the individualism that builds self while remaining blind to our interconnectedness in Christ. Silence the pride that believes our stream is better. Heal us from suspicion and accusation. For every pastor ready to give up, breathe oxygen into them again. Make us vulnerable in our weakness and generous in our strength. Make us wholly discontent with disconnection.
Make us one.
Is there a leader or congregation in our region you have held in judgment or at a distance? What would one step toward them look like this week?
Where has investment in your own congregation quietly become disconnection from the larger Body? What could it look like to begin to bridge that?
