a new feeling

It's interesting to me how change on a national level can be so powerful that it trickles down to the small communities that inhabit our nation. Sunday morning was a great time for me and the community I "do life" with - The Journey. It just seemed that with the combination of the recognition of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday and the forthcoming inauguration that there was a real sense of hope and gratitude in the air. Worship seemed to be especially powerful (even though our worship leader didn't get home until 4am that morning) and the teaching really focused on the power we have as followers of Jesus when we gather and serve with one common purpose. There really is strength in numbers. There really is power in unity. We remembered the call of Dr. King and of our new president to come together as one people to combat the problems that ail our nation and our world. We also remembered the call of our Lord Jesus to come together as one so that the world might know we are his. In Jesus longest recorded prayer, in John 17, He says: " I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 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. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 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.

These are very powerful words. The world will know who we are and whose we are when we come together in unity. Churches talk about evangelism, but I don't know of any greater tool of evangelism than joining together in unity over our one common cause. We know that we live in a broken world and that God has called us to help him heal the brokenness - to heal the sick, to visit the imprisoned, to feed the hungry, to set the oppressed free, to love the unlovable and forgive the unforgivable. In all these ways we introduce people to The Great Liberator and Healer, Jesus Christ. He is the head of the church, and we are the body. A body cannot live without the head and the head cannot operate without the body. Jesus has chosen us - yes, us - to be the instruments he uses to bring about his vision for the world. So, can we let go of the things that divide us and concentrate on the one who has called us - Jesus - and what he has called us to - unity? For some people that seems impossible. Maybe I'm just the eternal optimist, but with the events of this past week, I have hope. I have hope that we can let go of the things that are temporary and cling to the things that are eternal. I have hope that we can let go of things that, in the economy of God, don't really matter so that this world can see what matters most. I've been inspired this week, and I hope you have too. Let's re-evaluate what is worth dying for and what we can let go of so that we might become one in Christ, for the glory of God and for the sake of our world.