John 17:20-23 (NIV) 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.
What causes you to doubt the truth of the Christian faith? Certainly we are not lacking for reason to doubt. The presence of suffering and pain in our world can cause us to ask that if God is loving and powerful why He doesn’t do something about it. Even the Scriptures can sometimes cause us to doubt. The stories of Jonah and the whale, the Virgin Birth, the miracles, all these things can cause us to question if the Scriptures are really true.
I have found that the thing that caused me most to doubt the truth of the Christian faith is the church, and by the church I mean all those who profess to believe in Jesus as the Christ, the Baptists, the Roman Catholics, the Pentecostals, Church of Latter Day Saints, Seventh Day Adventist, Presbyterians, conservatives, liberals, fundamentalists. When I stand back and listen to the message of the whole and not just the segments that appeal to me, I hear so many conflicting things said about God and about the way He wants us to live that I am left in a state of total confusion.
Do we know the truth about God in Jesus Christ? Has that truth been clearly and convincingly revealed? Or, are we left in the dark to guess what God is like and how He wants us to live?
Jesus apparently foresaw the problem that would develop when Christians, all very sincere in what they say, made conflicting claims about the truth. While unity among Christians does not necessarily mean we all have to be in one denomination, we cannot dismiss the differences that exist between churches today. Jesus said, “I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—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.”
Imagine a body whose hands and feet and arms and legs, in trying to function by themselves, hurt other parts of the body. Imagine a body bleeding, wounded with open sores and broken bones. Divided Christians live in such a body. A body split and divided lacks that power to say a convincing word to the world today about God and about His will for our world.
From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope October 6, 1974
© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell
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