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\u201cI pray also for those who will believe in me through their message,\xa0that all of them may be one,\xa0Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.\xa0May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.\xa0I have given them the glory that you gave me,\xa0that they may be one as we are one\u2014\xa0I in them and you in me\u2014so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me\xa0and have loved them\xa0even as you have loved me.\u201d (John 17:20b-23)

This passage comes in the middle of Jesus\u2019 longest recorded prayer. What is this prayer about?\xa0 Unity with God and with one another.\xa0 Unity is about more than being together or even knowing one another.\xa0 Unity is taking part in one another.\xa0 Peter says that unity with God is participation in the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4).\xa0 Paul says that this unity is \u201cChrist in you, the hope of glory\u201d (Colossians 1:27).\xa0 Christ, His life, and His Spirit is within our very being.\xa0 We are one with Him.

And so, we are united with one another not because we share the same nationality or socioeconomic status or denomination.\xa0 We are one because we belong to and are first one with Christ, who is the author of our unity with Him and one another, by reconciling us to Himself through His work on the cross.

Because we are made in the image of God, we reflect God and God Himself is united in Trinity.\xa0 Three Persons in One. \xa0A dependence on One Another as Holy God, and an interdependence one upon the other in all things.\xa0 Our Christian walk with God is to display that dependence upon Him and an interdependence on one another in the body of Christ.

We are one because we were first made one with Christ.\xa0 And through our oneness with Christ and with one another, through our Christian love, the world will see Christ in us and will know that Jesus is God, the Saviour of the world.\xa0 Christian love.\xa0 The greatest witness of all.

But what of all the divisions and factions and schisms in the modern church and throughout history?\xa0 How can we reconcile any of this?\xa0 We live in a fallen world, yet we can know that God has been at work through it all. Christianity itself has not only survived but has grown from a small group of believers called \u201cthe Way\u201d in the first century to about a third of people in the world today following Christ. Christian love and unity is a foreign concept in modern society, and it has been through the ages too.\xa0 Yet, it is something that makes us distinct as believers.\xa0 That we are all united, we all belong to one body, we are all members of Christ.

\u201cSo in Christ Jesus you are all children of God\xa0through faith,\xa0for all of you who were baptized into Christ\xa0have clothed yourselves with Christ.\xa0\xa0There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free,\xa0nor is there male and female,\xa0for you are all one in Christ Jesus.\u201d (Galatians 3:26-28).

So, let us remember that God has called us to live in unity with one another and with Him, to live as children of God, brothers and sisters of Christ and to \u201cas far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone\u201d (Romans 12:18).\xa0 When we \u201cclothe ourselves with Christ\u201d we look for the good in one another without holding onto grudges or prejudices.\xa0 We look for the ways God is working instead of the way people are failing.\xa0 We look at what it means to be a body of Christ, united in Christ and united to one another.