May they be one
In recent times God has been cleansing and removing barriers within His Church. Now is the time for the whole Church to become one in Love, appreciating and respecting our different God-given strengths:
1 Corinthians 12:12- 21, 26-27:
‘For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body--Jews or Greeks, slaves or free--and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot were to say, 'Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body', that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear were to say, 'Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body', that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many members, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I have no need of you', nor again the head to the feet, 'I have no need of you.' ….If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
Exactly because of the wide diversity between the denominations, when we are united in the Spirit of Love and respect – then just as Jesus promised: ‘the world will believe’:
John 17:20-21 'I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, 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'
In His Wisdom and no doubt saddened that it caused so much upset throughout history, God has permitted the diversity within Christianity to exist throughout the centuries, for His own purposes.
Once God brings His Church to the unity of respecting our diverse gifts, the Church will in turn, be a light to the Nations and bring all the people and Nations of the World to the same unity and appreciation of each other’s’ diversity.
“Our common belonging to Christ through baptism in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit enables and calls churches to walk together, even when they are in disagreement.
We affirm that there is one baptism, just as there is one body and one Spirit, one hope of our calling, one Lord, one faith; one God and Father of us all (cf. Ephesians 4:4-6).
“Statement on ‘The Church, the Churches and the World Council of Churches’: The Ecclesiological Significance of the World Council of Churches” [The Toronto Statement], in W.A. Visser’t Hooft, The Genesis and Formation of the World Council of Churches, WCC, 1982, IV.3, p.117, cited in Growth In Agreement 3 – Intro. World Council of Churches 2007.)