Mission Plan Book

October 2004

Thomas Wright

Stand in a circle with 5 or more friends and hold hands. Place one person in the center of the circle. Have everyone take one step toward the person in the center of the circle. What happened to everyone in the circle? They got closer to the person in the center of the circle. Each person in the circle also got closer together. That is what the Bible means by unity. When we take a step toward Jesus we get closer to each other too.

This is what Jesus said in John 17: 22. Jesus is praying to His Father and says, "The glory which You have given Me I have given to them,(believers) that they may be one, just as We are one;"

Jesus wants believers to be as close to Him as Jesus is to His Father. That relationship is so close that we become "one." This means that each believer allows the Holy Spirit to change us to be just like Jesus. Unfortunately we often try to change Jesus to be like us.

In the first part of John 17:23, Jesus teaches that our unity comes from inviting Jesus to be in us. "I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity . . ."

Unity comes when we are in Christ and Christ is in us. Christ comes in us when we repent from disobeying God, which is sin. Then ask the Holy Spirit to come into our life to change our heart and mind to be like Jesus. We have to allow the Holy Spirit to clean all of our heart and mind. This takes time. He has to replace a lot of old ideas and old habits. This is why we must be "in" Jesus to learn new ideas and new habits from Him. We need to be in Christ every day through our prayer and Bible study.

John 17:23 continues with Jesus saying that our unity is to be a testimony to the rest of the world. ". . . so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me." The love of God is a wonderful message to share with others. It is that love that sent Jesus to die for our sin on the cross.

It is that love that sends us to tell others all around the world. If Jesus is in us and we are in Jesus we will be sharing Jesus with all of our friends and neighbors.

In Col 1:14-16, the Apostle Paul presents four things that will help believers who want to live in unity with other believers. In verse 14 he talks about love. "Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity." Paul shows us in Galatians 5:22 that love is a fruit of the Spirit. Through the Holy Spirit we can love people that are very hard to love.

In verse 15 Paul talks about peace. He says to "Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful." The word "peace" comes from a Greek word meaning "to reunite or reconcile." Humans can only find peace by being reunited with the Creator God, through His Son Jesus Christ, and in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Third, in this verse and the next verse Paul reminds us that being thankful is important to unity.

Fourth, in verse 16 Paul reminds us that those who want unity will live in Christ.

For further study on unity see chapter four of he WMU book Be Restored. This resource has 7 other chapters to help Christian women uncover "the spiritual might to experience restoration and change their world for Christ."

Since unity is so important, how can it be broken so easily? Matt. 4:1-11 shows that God’s enemy is Satan. He always disobeys God. Satan works hard to make everyone disobey God too. Satan does not like unity. He will do anything to break unity.

Satan works every day to break unity between God and people. Satan wants to be God. He wants people to follow him and his plans. He is always working to keep people away from the creator God and His son Jesus.

Satan works every day to break unity between Christians. Satan knows it is a good plan to divide and conquer. He usually begins by breaking the fellowship between believers. A Christian who does not attend church is an easy target for Satan to conquer.

John 10:10 warns believers about Satan. It is wrong for Christians to be in unity with Satan’s ideas and activities. Because Satan is God enemy, Christians will always disagree with Satan. We cannot be in unity with Satan or his followers when their plans are different from God’s plans.

Unity is important to the life and witness of each believer. Do not let Satan break our unity. People who want unity need to invite the Holy Spirit to be in us. We need to allow the Spirit to give us love, peace, and thankfulness. We need daily to be in Christ through prayer and Bible study.

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