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This page was last updated on May 14, 2000
Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ, below is an excerpt from a Christian unity prayer. Please give it prayerful consideration and, if the Spirit leads, please pray this yourself and let us agree together in it, in prayer before the Lord.
CHRISTIAN UNITY PRAYER, PART 18 OF 25: “Father, We Repent; Please Forgive Us, and Let Our Faith Live in the Small, Sacrificial Works of Love that We Do as Unprofitable Servants, in the Name of Your Love for All Your Children, of Every Christian Denomination and Group”
Father, we know of the former power in the Holy Spirit that your children had together in Jesus, beginning with the first Pentecost after His resurrection. We have read of the great power to do mighty works that was given by Jesus and by the Holy Spirit to the apostles, and also, through the apostles, power in the Spirit to some of the first disciples. Before we began to unite with all our brothers, we used to wonder why, Lord, you made the power of the Holy Spirit in us to become so weak by comparison. We had read of those earliest Christians who were united by either having seen Jesus, or by the apostle’s first-hand testimony of His words and demonstration of the power of your Spirit. When we had read of these things, we wondered why, after those earliest Christians were gone and before we had begun to work together for unity, your miracles through us seemed, then, to be relatively few and far between.
We had a form of faith then, Lord, but our faith in the body of Christ had not yet been made fully alive by the works of making a wholehearted effort to become one in love with all our brethren together in His one Spirit and body, for the Bible says “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also” (James 2:26). Each isolated Christian group or denomination among us was like a servant who had done only a part of the things that were commanded him, not obeying the new commandment of Jesus, and yet foolishly looked for a reward before he had done everything possible to serve his master, for Jesus said “…If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you. But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat? And will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken; and afterward thou shalt eat and drink? Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I trow not. So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do” (Luke 17:6-10).
Dear, Merciful, Longsuffering Father in Heaven, whose grace extends forever, and from earth to the highest heavens, we humbly ask you to forgive us all for all our prideful, carnal sins against Christian unity. We have only now come late to the elevated status of being even unprofitable servants to you, Father, having failed you in your new commandment for so many years gone by. We now belatedly recognize that unity in Jesus is your will and new commandment, Lord: no more than a fundamental part of our minimum duty, long shirked; a matter of the milk of the first principles we have long needed to be taught again. For the marriage feast of Jesus, we’re just now getting around to setting the table. We know we don’t deserve any thanks, and we now patiently, gratefully, fervently serve Jesus and wait on His table, making sure to set before Jesus all things pleasing in His sight. It is our greatest desire now to see that Jesus is filled, satisfied, and well pleased in the meat we now set before Him to eat, and Jesus said, again, “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work” (John 4:34). We simply now do our part to finish your work in us for the Son, Father; to finish and perfect His bride-to-be with love in her heart for Jesus as for all your children. Now we wait at the ready, in work clothes, with our work lamps filled with the shared oil of the Spirit, shared together before it’s too late, and looking and longing for the bridegroom’s return, for Jesus said, “Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning; And ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately. Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them” (Luke 12:35-37).
Woefully and ashamedly undeserving of any merit for our past prodigal service to you, Dear Father, we now seek with our whole hearts to find ways to unite in your love for all your children, of all Christian denominations and groups. With self-sacrificial gifts of mutual forgiveness in our hearts for each other, we forgive all our prodigal brothers as ourselves, in this, our reunion in Jesus, the eldest and firstborn, and in the fullness of our family’s joy in your presence, Father. Together as family again, we now have the kind of hearing of your word that means understanding and which produces faith, for the Bible says, “…faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17). Our faith is living because it is now made alive by the works of love that we do according to your will to seek unity together, Father, in your love for all your children in your household. And if the works that we do are only small works to make ourselves one in Jesus, then we beseech your unbounded lovingkindness, Father, to let it be enough to allow each of us to say to each other, as the Bible says, “…I will shew thee my faith by my works” (James 2:18); and the miniscule works we do for unity need only to make alive in us faith as a grain of mustard seed, so that together, in love, we can move mountains in the name of Jesus.
As we take each step, Father, to draw nearer together to Jesus and to each other in the spirit and life which are your words, we look for you to work your power through us more and more, until the falling away first comes, and you then deliver whatever part may then be the remainder of us, from the tribulation into the power of full unity in you; but not because we will ever deserve either your power or your deliverance, Father. By seeking with our brethren the unity in your love for us, we are still only unprofitable servants, merely doing our duty. Father, we know that we could no more deserve the power of your Holy Spirit, than we could ever begin to deserve the blood of your glorious, beloved Son, which is the greatest gift of all, and which you gave for all of us in the first place while were yet sinners. We remain undeserving of your grace, and always will be.
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Love in Jesus to All!
We cordially invite any interested Christian to read and pray the rest of this prayer, or just to come and talk with Christians of all backgrounds, on a Christian unity email discussion mailing list. We’d love to hear from you about any Christian topic at all, and especially to discuss any topic related to unity of all Christians, of all Christian denominations and groups. (Btw, non-Christian visitors are welcome too!) You can find info on the email discussion mailing list, which is called the “Christian Unity Conference” (CUC), or info about a combined effort on a larger prayer for Christian unity, part of which is shown above, called the “Christian Unity Prayer Project” (CUPP), by going to the following URL:
http://www.superior.net/~pjrcmr/prayerparts.html