Calendar

JESUS DEFINES UNITY (II)
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 27
John 17:12-17

Acts 20:24-31

 

“Sanctify them through thy truth…”

 

JESUS DEFINES UNITY (II)
 
The Christian mission is thus not a temporal one — to “contend for the truth that politics, law, and culture must be secured by moral truth” — as the ECT endorsers would have us believe. On the contrary, the primary duty of the Christian Church is a spiritual one — to “earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 3). This is because the present world system as predicted by the Holy Scriptures is not getting better. The Christian duty of this century and in the third millennium, if the Lord tarries, is not to improve the world by the ecumenical power of an Evangelical-Catholic union, but to convert the lost by the uncompromised preaching of an unadulterated Gospel that only Jesus saves! The power of the Church lies not in its numbers, but in the Gospel of Christ (Rom 1:16). The Lord used only twelve faithful Apostles to turn the world “upside down” (Acts 17:6). The Lord has never relied on numbers to achieve His goals.
 
It is equally important to know for whom Jesus prayed if we are to understand what He meant when He said, “that they may be one.” The people for whom Jesus prayed were Christians who had the following traits:
 
First, they were knowledgeable of the only living and true God. Eternal life was a result of knowing the one true God, and Christ (John 17:3). To know God is to have a personal relationship with Him in Christ. The object of this knowledge is not any god, but “the only true God” (John 17:3) who has sent His Son to reveal the only way to eternal life.
 
Second, they were obedient to the Word of God. Jesus taught His Father’s Word to the disciples, and they “have kept thy word” (John 17:6). In John 17:8, Jesus said that the disciples paid attention not only to the whole sum but also to each part of Jesus’ teaching, and obeyed them. They did not pick and choose what they wanted to believe and practise.
 
THOUGHT: “Purity in doctrine preserves the unity of the Church.” (Calvin)

PRAYER: O Father, keep me pure in doctrine.

Search