John 17:20-21. “I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.”

When we place ourselves in a special category and we look upon others as outside of that category then we create distance between ourselves and them. For instance, as believers in Jesus who have been baptized according to the Scriptures by immersion we may feel that those who also believe in Jesus but were simply baptized as babies are lacking in obedience to the Lord. There can be no real fellowship between us and them because we have deliberately set ourselves apart. The so-called Pentecostal experience is perhaps an even more prevalent example of what may cause separation.

Everyone in whom resides the Holy Spirit of God is my brother in Christ. To live that out is to experience the true and real body life that Jesus died to bring about and maintain forever. The ultimate expression of this eternal truth is ‘the bride, the wife of the Lamb’ in whom all who love the Lord Jesus will participate. If through His death and resurrection this unity is a fact now, why should we wait to experience and enjoy it only in the life hereafter?

Perhaps, even more significantly, why give cause for the world to deny that God the Father sent His one and only Son into the world so that whoever believes in Him would not perish but have eternal life?

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