JESUS said in John 13 "By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

I think that if you go into most churches, you will find some people who are loving, some who are caring, some who are indifferent. Then there are others who feel that "loving" certain members of their church is the last thing that they want to do or feel.

I think that that is a shame, but wait: Jesus actually set the bar a lot higher than just loving one another. Jesus prays in John, chapter 17: "Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.

I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me, through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us...

The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me."

I don’t know any church, even my own, with that level of love and unity, but I hope that God the Father will answer the prayer of Jesus, His Son, very soon.

Pastor David Hendrickse, Sedbergh Christian Centre