[christianunity] Re: [CU] true unity

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From: "Thomas E. Mackey" <temackey.jn17.21@...>
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 16:22:42 PST
Brother Tim, et al,
   You have requested I suggest a prayer for Christian unity.
   I can't think of a better place to begin than Jesus' own prayer
recorded in John 17.  After praying specifically for the apostles,
He reached across the centuries with a prayer that includes you 
and me and all believers:
   (v.20) I am praying not only for these (apostles) but also for
all who will ever believe in me because of their testimony.
   (v.21) My prayer for all of them is that they will be one, just as
you and I are one, Father -- that just as you are in me and I am 
in you, so they will be in us, and the world will believe you sent
me.
   (v.22) I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they
may be one, as we are --
   (v.23) I in them and you in me, all being perfected into one...
   Here is how I take Jesus' prayer and make it my own:  In Jesus'
name, I pray for all who believe in Jesus on the basis of the apostolic
testimony... past, present and future.  Father, may we all be one, just
as you and Jesus are one.  May your life that infused Jesus, in turn
infuse and immerse us, so that an unbelieving world will see some-
thing worth believing in.  Manifest the glory of your presence in us,
so that we may be one with Christ and one another, as you and Jesus
are one.
   Now, you try making Jesus' prayer your own.
   _What are the results?_
   When the expressed desires of this prayer become the soil from
which all else is grown in my life, is it any longer possible to desire
to "hurt or kill on God's holy mountain"?
   Can we any longer desire to see left out _any_ whom our Father has
included?
   Conversely, does it not cause our hearts to long for a family reunion?
   Isn't this _The Old Time Religion_ that makes me love everybody,
even the ones I can't like?
Yours because we're HIS,
Tom
temackey.jn17.21@...

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