One hundred religious persons knit into a unity by careful organization do not constitute a church any more than eleven dead men make a football team.
~A. W. Tozer (1897-1963)
“I’m not praying only for them. I’m also praying for those who will believe in me through their message. I pray that all of these people continue to have unity in the way that you, Father, are in me and I am in you. I pray that they may be united with us so that the world will believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me. I did this so that they are united in the same way we are. I am in them, and you are in me. So they are completely united. In this way the world knows that you have sent me and that you have loved them in the same way you have loved me. “Father, I want those you have given to me to be with me, to be where I am. I want them to see my glory, which you gave me because you loved me before the world was made. Righteous Father, the world didn’t know you. Yet, I knew you, and these disciples have known that you sent me. I have made your name known to them, and I will make it known so that the love you have for me will be in them and I will be in them.”
~ Jesus, The Great Lover of our souls in John 17
Oh beloved, one of the great proofs of the Gospel is the unity of the true brethren across the planet. This writer had the chance to walk into and join a small group 9,300 miles from his former home a couple of nights ago. The group was comprised of persons completely alien to my normal associations in the USA. Chinese businessmen, an Indonesian legal assistant, a Filipino pastor and a couple of other Asians were gathered for dinner centered around Sushi.
But He was there.
He was in us.
We were with each other. And it was as if we had been friends from the foundations of our lives in Him. And we had.
We spoke on discerning the will of G_d in our lives. and i was asked as a visiting minister to bring a Rhema to the gathering. No preparation… just a couple notes on the back of a receipt i had pulled from my pocket.
But He was there.
He was in us.
We were with each other.
He spoke through me, in a quiet voice, an unrelenting message of surrender and hope and joy and peace and righteousness in the power of the Holy Spirit. And as i (mostly He) spoke, something became abundantly clear to me. Cultural differences are not really differences. They are but refractions of the glory of G_d’s creative work in the making of mankind. For as the message came to a close, my (mostly His) words had spoken as clearly to these beloved brethren as (or more) clearly as if i had been speaking to a gathering in my old home town of Arizona.
The Father was – in part – answering the prayer of His Son a couple of nights ago. He was in us. We – people from all over the world – were simply united with each other in worship. We Loved each other truly and well.
The other vital truth i saw was that the Gospel is not cultural. The Gospel works in all places at all times. The Good News that Jesus Christ is the Way the Truth and the Life is true across time and geography. In fact, in any group that is truly worshiping Him – anywhere across the planet – there will grow a new and ancient culture from the seed sown so early first by Jesus Himself and then the disciples who abandoned all to follow after Him. It has nothing to do with organization or denomination. It has everything to do with the truth that there is One Holy Spirit living all of Himself in all of us individually in the same moment and building a Kingdom that will never end.
He is here.
He is in us.
We are with each other.
