We praise You today, Father, as the God who is Love, the God who came to us in Jesus! We worship the One who amazingly invites us into Your very life and who unites us in Your love. Thank You for choosing us to be Your instruments of love to others.

 

 

20 My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

 

 

When Jesus prayed to the Father near the end of His life on earth, He prayed not only for the twelve disciples, but for us too. And what did He pray for? For our unity! This unity that He prays for us to have is the deepest kind of unity possible – the oneness of the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit!

 

It is mind-blowing and heart enlarging to realize that through Christ we are invited into the very oneness of the Triune God. Further, only in our oneness with Christ, as He abides in us and we in Him, can we have true Christian unity with others. This is a relational unity and a bond through the love of God. The result? The world will come to know Christ and the love of God as He reveals His glory through us.

 

Take some time to reflect on this amazing reality today. Sit with Jesus and hear His prayer for you, CRISTA, and the whole Church around the world. Invite Him to abide in you, and to bring you into deeper unity with Him and therefore with others. Pray that His wondrous love would overflow from us, and others would come to know Him as a result.

 

 

Please pray today for CRISTA Media and World Concern, and join us for the Prayer Walks at noon and 3:30pm. You can also visit Prayer Stations for these ministries in the Reimer Library in the Martin Center.

 

 

Jesus, we love You and we say ‘yes’ to Your love. Please make us at CRISTA Your instruments of love to the world as we harmonize together through You. AMEN