1 Peter 3:8
8 Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous:
Francis Schaeffer the theologian and apologist hammered out his theology joined with observable Christian love. He said, “If we do not show beauty in the way we treat each other, then in the eyes of the world and in the eyes of our own children, we are destroying the truth we proclaim.”
Even as we confess the truth of his words, we also confess that Christian love is easier to talk about than to put into practice. A little poem says it well:
To live up above with the saints that we love,
That will be grace and glory,
To live down below with the saints that we know,
Ah, that’s another story!
Perhaps you’ve heard of the little girl who prayed, “Lord, make all the bad people good and all the good people nice.” When we pray for unity, we’re asking God to “make all the good people nice.\”
In my years of preaching the gospel I have come to learn a number of things regarding the importance of unity.
1) Unity is a precious gift
from God.
2) Where unity is present, all things are possible.
3) When a church is divided, nothing works right.
4) Unity is easily lost and harder to regain.
5) True unity does not happen by accident. We must pray for it and we must work
at it.
Unity demands an ongoing commitment from every believer. Perhaps we should all pray this simple Chinese prayer: “O Lord, change the world. Begin, I pray Thee, with me.”
Dr. Gayle Woods