IQ #239 "One God. One Body"

Greetings and blessing to all followers of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Blessed be to God who gives us breath and life to embrace this day.

It is that time of year when marching bands across the nation begin the ritual of entertaining a gathered group of people in the middle of a dollar’s worth of football plays. These halftime shows remind me of the fictional Atlanta A&T University marching band’s motto in the movie, ‘Drumline’; “One band. One sound.”

The band prepares itself to perform, not as a bunch of musicians doing their own thing, but as a complete united unit with a purpose to look and sound as one body. If the band’s motto is accomplished, then those who witness the band will be inspired by their focused conformity and musical tribute.

As a follower of Jesus Christ and a disciple to His ministry, it has come upon me in the past week that if we as Christians were to have a ‘motto’ it should be, “One God. One Body.”

John 13:34-35

³⁴ “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. ³⁵ By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

This new commandment was put into a hymn that I have always enjoyed singing:

“We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord. We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord. And together we’ll spread the news that God is in our land. And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love, yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love.”

I love this commandment and it is great how we can sing about it, but it saddens me because we don’t get it. We haven’t grasped the real meaning of this love Jesus is referring to. Love your brothers and sisters that are followers of Jesus Christ, not as the world views love, but as God loves us as one body of Christ.

As Jesus prepared his disciples for the time when he would no longer be in their physical presence He prayed for them, not the world, as the world is the battle ground where the forces under Satan’s power and God’s authority are at war. Hear in (John 17:13-19) where Jesus asks in prayer for the immeasurable joy of living in intimate contact with Him be found in each disciple, and for the protection and sanctification of his disciples, for the benefit of future believers. (John 17:20-23)

John 17:13-19

¹³ “I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. ¹⁴ I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. ¹⁵ My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. ¹⁶ They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. ¹⁷ Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. ¹⁸ As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. ¹⁹ For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.

Cleansed of the impurities of this world and made holy by God’s sanctification these disciples were filled with the truth of God’s Word, God’s love, God’s power to arm them with all they needed to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ around the world, just as Jesus was sent into this world. They were one with God.

John 17:20-23

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.

Jesus prayed for all believers, then, now and all those to come, so that we may all be as one, Just As Jesus and God are one in each other. How fantabulously awesome is that! ”that all of them (You and I) may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.”

God created man in his own image, a reflection of who God is. But man, tarnished by the evils in this world, lost sight of that image. God’s love for us, his created image, is so strong that he sent Jesus to forgive us and free us from the curse and evils of this world, sanctifying all who believe in Jesus, purifying each believer, so that God could be seen in his created image again, and given the promise of eternal life with God.

Think how incredible that would be if all believers truly Loved the Lord our God with all our hearts and with all our souls and with all our minds, and love each other as God loves us, then whenever non-believers come up to us they see the presence of God in ALL believers faces. “Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love, they will know we are Christians by our love. One God. One Body.

Papa John  8:27:15