Jesus asks His Father to protect us, to keep watch over us, and guard us so we might be one as He and the Father are one. A bit further He says that He prays for everyone who believes in Him “that all of them may be one” just as God is in Christ and Christ is in the Father. Jesus declares that He has given us the same glory the Father had given Him, and the purpose again is so we may be as one as Jesus and His Father are one. And then Jesus prays “May they be brought to complete unity.”

Could there be a pattern here? Is the fact that Jesus prays so many times about oneness and unity significant? You bet it is! Of all the things that Jesus could have asked His Father for on behalf of His disciples, oneness was a priority. It is no light matter to cheapen or ignore the importance of being one with our brothers and sisters in Christ. The consequences of disunity are disastrous and painful, and the proof of this is seen all around us in situations where churches are in terrible conflict and Christians are more involved in attacking one another than in joining together to reach the lost. God never wills that His church be divided or in conflict.

One very important purpose of Christian unity is so the world will know that God sent Christ to His disciples demonstrating how He loves them with the same measure of love that He loves Christ. It is by the love that we have one for the other that the world will know we are Christians.

Are you standing as one with your brothers and sisters? When someone looks at you do they see Christ? If we fail to be united then we have lost our way and cannot please God; our efforts are empty, and we are but a noise.

Carefully read John 17 and meditate on Jesus’ prayer, and then rest comforted in the fact that Jesus Christ has prayed this for you that you might know the fullness of His love and be complete. God has counted you worthy of His love. Experience Him by being one with your brothers and sisters as Christ and the Father are one.