 We are in the week between Ascension and Pentecost. On 30th May, we celebrated Ascension Day even as our new government was sworn in. Before the ascension, Jesus revealed himself to his disciples and appeared to them over a period of 40 days. After this, Jesus was exalted to the right hand of God the Father where he is seated and is constantly interceding for us. Jesus had told his disciples that after he goes back to the Father, he would send the gift of the promised Holy Spirit to be with them forever. Next week we will celebrate the feast of Pentecost when the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out on all the believers. This morning we are looking at the theme, “We are created to know God and abide in him”. We will be looking at the part of the high-priestly prayer which Jesus prayed for his disciples and for all future disciples. One of the key things in this high-priestly prayer is that of unity. The prayer is addressed to the Father and it is a plea for the immediate disciples and future disciples that they would be one. Jesus knew that he was going back to the Father and that the disciples would be vulnerable to all the attacks of the evil one, particularly with regards to unity. Therefore, he prays to the Father for their protection. Disunity and division are the greatest weapons of the devil to destroy a church. Jesus wants the same unity that existed between his Father and himself to be the benchmark of unity among his disciples. He prays that just as the Father remains in Christ and Christ remains in the Father, the disciples would remain and abide in Christ. Only when we remain in Christ and walk according to his words will there be any true unity. The challenge for us this morning is to introspect and find out whether we are remaining in Christ. If we do, then we will be working towards unity. We need to remain in Christ so that we would bear the fruit of righteousness and also be able to sustain ourselves. Apart from Jesus we can do nothing. So, the challenge for us this morning is that we should remain in Christ by being obedient to his words so that we would bear much fruit. A second area that Jesus prays for unity is that, through this unity, the world may know that the Father had sent him to love the people, just as he loved Jesus. Jesus says that the glory that was given to him was now passed on to the disciples. The glory is given to human beings because of the presence of God in their lives, when they put their trust in Jesus Christ and receive the Holy Spirit. The two outcomes of this unity is that the world will believe in Jesus Christ and the world will believe that God loves them as he loved Jesus Christ. The world does not know Christ and only Jesus can reveal God in his totality because he is God in human flesh. Jesus made known the love of God by his supreme self-sacrificial love on the cross. He took the penalty of our sins and he died as a substitute in our place so that we might live. The purpose that Jesus came was that we may know God and be united to him, so that we may bear much fruit in our own life. May we this morning make every effort to be united as a church so that others would know the love of God and come to a saving knowledge of Christ. May we truly remain in him and his words in us that we may bear much fruit. Shalom Paul Swarup |