Appointed To Bear Fruit: A 90 Day JourneySample

The Testimony of Our Unity

The gospel spread through the witness of Jesus’ original disciples to people all around the world. Jesus knew that His disciples would bear fruit, and that the Holy Spirit would convict people of their sin when they heard the Good News. He also knew people would come to faith through repentance when they heard about Jesus’ death and resurrection. Therefore, Jesus prays for these future believers. Jesus, our High Priest, not only gave Himself as a sacrifice of atonement to pay our debt of sin, but He continues His priestly duties by making intercession for every believer. Jesus is praying that through our lives, the gospel might go out to everyone who needs salvation.

Jesus’ prayer for all believers is that they might be one. This oneness is not an earthly oneness, but a spiritual one. It reflects the relationship of the Father to the Son. We can only have this unity if we first have the spiritual life of God flowing through us. Oneness is based on being in the vine. Our abiding in Christ means, that just as every branch is one in the vine, so too we are all one in Christ. Becoming part of the vine is accomplished through salvation in Jesus Christ. “But to all who did receive Him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12). All believers are one because we are children of one Father. On the Day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit filled all who believed. In other words, they were spiritually brought into a relationship with Christ. 

However, the work of Christ didn’t end there. The disciples obeyed the Great Commission by proclaiming the gospel in other lands. As a result, people from different races also put their faith in Christ. This caused a conflict among the believers from Jewish backgrounds. Their previous religion taught them that they were right and everyone else was wrong, so they were greatly prejudiced towards people who were not Jews. But, soon the gospel message had reached so many non-Jews that the Jewish influence over the church was being lost. The Laws of Moses were being forced on all believers from believers with Jewish backgrounds, but this was not the gospel. The gospel says we are not saved by keeping the Law, but through faith in Jesus Christ alone. That’s why the Apostle Paul said: “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit” (I Cor. 12:13).

Our unity with other believers is a testimony to the world, so it’s important that we all get along. It shows the world that Jesus Christ is Lord, because people will put aside their prejudices and feelings of superiority to humbly submit to Christ. Not only is the Son the only one who can pay our debt of sin, He is also the only one who can unify humanity, because the Son humbly submitted to the Father. As His disciples humbly submit to Him, the world will know that Jesus is Lord. Branches in the vine come in all shapes and sizes, but they all have one thing in common: The life of the vine flows through them, causing them to bear fruit. As we all abide in Christ, the Spirit will work to bear fruit through us. We need to remember that all believers have one Savior and one mission. We can rejoice in our differences knowing that God has created us to serve Him in different places and in different contexts, but always with the same mission: to proclaim to the world that Jesus is Lord.

Application:  How is your unity with other believers testifying to the gospel?