Hello CU List, and especially you Thomas,

What a really wonderful prayer, Thomas!  Amen.  You've lifted my heart, and
given much to consider!  More later, but I just wanted to say thanks.

Love in Jesus,
Tim

----- Original Message -----
From: Thomas E. Mackey <temackey.jn17.21@...>
To: <christianunity@...>
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 1999 7:22 PM
Subject: Re: [CU] true unity


> 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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