From my friend Reed Merino
You are guilty – and you don’t even KNOW it – if you are content to be a DENOMINATIONAL Christian!
If I am successful then when you have finished reading this essay you will feel a hefty dose of guilt and anger – hopefully, not at me, but at both yourself and your congregation or denomination.
On the very last day in which He could be with His beloved disciples, He introduced them to the covenant meal through which He was going to fulfill His promise to be in their midst. He then entered into the most passionate and intense prayer that is recorded within the Scriptures; listen to it with your heart:
“Jesus spoke these things, raising His eyes to Heaven and saying:
‘Father, the hour has come! Glorify Your Son, so that Your Son also may glorify You, just as You gave Him authority over all humanity, so that He will give eternal life to all those whom You have given Him. Now eternal life is this: that they may know You, the only true God, and the One whom You sent – Jesus Christ. I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work that You have given me to do. So now, Father, You glorify me by Your side with the glory that I had along with You before the world existed!’
‘I have revealed Your name to the men whom You have given me out of the world. They were Yours and You gave them to me, and they have kept Your word. They now know that everything You have given to me is from You; because I have given them the sayings which You have given to me; and they have received and known for sure that I came forth from You, and they have believed that You sent me. I am praying for them; I am not praying for the world but for those whom You have given me, because they are yours. Actually, all my things are Yours and Yours are mine, and I have been glorified in them. Now I am no longer in the world, yet these are in the world, and I am coming to You.’
‘Holy Father, keep them in Your name which You have given to me, SO THAT THEY MAY BE ONE JUST AS WE ARE. While I was with them in the world I kept them in Your name. I protected those whom You gave me, and not one of them was lost except the son of perdition, so that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to You, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made full in them.’
‘I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I am not asking that You take them out of the world, but that You keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by Your truth; Your word is truth. Just as You sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.’
‘I pray not only for these, but also for those who believe into me through their word; [that is you and me!] that they ALL MAY BE ONE, JUST AS YOU, FATHER, ARE IN ME AND I IN YOU; that in Us they also may be one, SO THAT THE WORLD MAY BELIEVE THAT YOU SENT ME. In fact, the glory that You gave to me I have given to them, so that THEY MAY BE ONE JUST AS WE ARE ONE: I in them and You in me, so that they may be perfected into one; also SO THAT THE WORLD MAY KNOW THAT YOU SENT ME AND HAVE LOVED THEM JUST AS YOU HAVE LOVED ME.’
‘Father, those whom You have given to me, I desire that they also may be with me where I am, so that they may observe my glory, which You have given me, because You loved me before the founding of the world. Righteous Father! Indeed the world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent me. Yes, I have made Your name known to them and will make it known, so that the love with which You have loved me may be in them, and I in them.’ (John 17) When he had said these things, Jesus went out with his disciples across the Kidron Valley. There was an orchard there, and he and his disciples went into it.” [And it was in that Garden that He sweat in such passion prayer that, “being in agony, He was praying very fervently; and His sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground” (Luke 22:44)].
If you have let His “bloody sweat” prayer penetrate into your heart, and stir up your own motivations, then you cannot but help being aware of just HOW IMPORTANT it was, and still is to Him that we who consider ourselves to be “Christians” be united in our affection for one another, in faithfully passing on His teachings together, and in our ability to decide and function as one in our decision making. As Paul also pleaded: “Now I PLEAD with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all SPEAK the same thing, and that there be NO DIVISIONS among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the SAME MIND and in the SAME JUDGMENT” (1 Corinthians 1:10; by “same mind and in the same judgment,” I understand Paul to be saying, “same theory and same practice”). How much time do you take thinking, praying, and yearning for that to happen?
Whether you have IN FACT received the same Spirit into Him that He had received in His baptism is demonstrated by whether there is a recognizable movement going on within you that was so clearly within Him – a movement that is drawing you into a passion for union with other disciples of Jesus that is the very same intimate union that Jesus and His Father have: “ONE JUST AS WE ARE.” Do you even recognize within you a DESIRE for that kind of unity with the fellow members of your own congregation, let alone among all of your fellow fragmented Christians?
If you cannot recognize that desire within your heart, do you realize what that is telling you about the real nature of your loyalty, love, and trust in Jesus? If it is not motivating your prayer and your actions, it means that your “personal relationship with Jesus” is not as personal or as real as you may think. To be “in Christ” certainly must mean that you yearn for what was and is within His heart to be within your heart, no?
That kind of loving unity has never EXISTED within the unregenerated people of planet Earth! And, to Jesus, that unity for which He prayed, endured the agony of bloody sweat, and poured out His life’s blood – that unity was SO important that it was a key way by which, “the world may KNOW that you sent me and HAVE loved them just as you have loved me.” Do you understand the gravity of the fragmentation of what Christianity has become? – “so that the WORLD MAY KNOW that you sent me AND HAVE LOVED THEM just as you have loved me”! Your “fragments” are power testimony that God does NOT love them in the way that the Father loves His Son!
But despite how much we all may be proclaiming to God how much we love Him and want to please Him and spread His holy Gospel – here we are, FUNCTIONALLY split up into hundreds and hundreds of splintered and competitive fragments. Our theologians can wax clever and eloquent about how all who are “born again” are members of His “one church.” But the world is less deceived than our theologians! They can see how “seriously” WE take that Book that we want THEM to read! And if they ever do decide to “go to church” they know that no matter what kind of lifestyle they prefer to embrace they can find a “church” to suite their taste.
And the horrible tragedy is that you who are reading this probably do not really know within your own heart what Jesus was verbally pouring out through His heart! You probably do not feel the horrible effect that the very existence of your own denominational fragment is having on the cause of Christ – or how easy your fragment is making it for Satan to convince his citizens to ignore you! Neither you nor your church elders or your pastor are probably engaged in any heartfelt prayer – let along actions – to explore with other sincere “Bible believing Christians” how you might overcome your differences of “theory and practice” and fulfill the deep desire of the Man that you claim is your “Lord and Savior.”
Your denomination, whether consisting of hundreds of congregations or just one, is an affront to God, a scandal that demeans the name of Jesus, the Son of the Most High God! Your denomination is a broken off fragment of the holy movement that Jesus created and called “My Church.” You Methodists, or Baptists, or Presbyterians, Lutherans and Anglicans are a broken-off fragment that advertises itself as an adequate representation of the whole, like trying to sell an animal with no legs and advertising it as a horse, or advertising a machine with no propeller and wings as an airplane. And the Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox are no better – they were the ones who BEGAN that fragmentation! And no matter HOW different your denominations are from one another each of you feels that you have the right to call yourself a “church of Jesus Christ.” And, if you are loyal to your denomination then you may well assume that all the other denominations should quit being who they are and join your denomination. And if you think that your “non-denominational church” claim exempts you from this charge, you will find that God merely looks at you as a rebellious group that is so unable to become one with others – so extremely fragmented – as to have become a one-church denomination!
The reason that you are content to remain in your denominational fragments is not because you have problems with their people and their people’s theology and actions nearly as much as because you have problems with Jesus! You do not love Him as much in your heart as you do on paper. If you loved Him and were as personally loyal to Him as you may think you are, then you would have His passion that poured out through His prayer!
Jesus’s passion for His children to be one flock is obvious. If you do not share His passion then why do you think that you are one of his children? His Spirit – animated children are motivated to be loyal to Him, so as to let HIS priorities become their priorities, His passions their passions.
If you are a true lover of what God defines as “good” then you will always be looking for what is good – ANYWHERE you can find it, but especially from other sincere followers of Jesus. But if you are merely – as God judges you – a lover of your denominational tribe then you are content to focus largely on where your tribe is superior to the other tribes: and the tragedy that Satan created just continues.
So: what are you going to do about it?
You can learn more about Reed and his books by going to reedmerino.com.
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