3 Reasons We Need to Pray for Unity
Becoming a Community of Grace, Doing Life Together
Evan Carlson
CEO & President, Family Life Radio
Unity is vital for the health of your community, your country, and the world you live in today. As Christ followers, if we don’t protect unity, strive for it, and do everything we can to promote it, we open the gate to the enemy. The enemy will attack and cause ineffectiveness and destruction. Let’s look at three reasons we need to pray for unity within our community on a frequent and reoccurring basis. We are called to be a community of grace, doing life together to please the Father.
How do we preserve unity in our community?
You may be very familiar with Moses, the Israelites fleeing Egypt after generations of servitude. They travelled through the desert and came up on a massive body of water – the Red Sea. They can see their captors, the Egyptians behind them, coming to recapture and enslave them again.
Imagine yourself in that place for a second. They were in absolute terror. They had nowhere to go, and no one to go to except to God. It had to feel like an impossible situation.
Moses tells them, “The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still” (Exodus 14:14 NIV). And then what does God do? He parts the Red Sea, and the people of God walk right through. The Egyptians follow into the water after them and the waters rush over them. That’s an amazing miracle!
• The Israelites were quiet.
• They submitted themselves to God.
Now think about the impossible situation we find ourselves in as the people of God today.
• We’ve got denominational differences. There are some forty thousand denominations around the globe.
• We are of different races and ages.
• We have different opinions regarding to vaccinate or not vaccinate, to wear a mask or not wear one.
And if the world looks in from the outside, they would probably say, “You guys should be an absolute wreck. This shouldn’t work.”
But it works because God calls us to unite as one. That means we need to submit to God in prayer every day.
Why do we need to pray for unity?
• Because we desperately need each other.
• Because the world will see God’s love.
• Because we can do infinitely more together.
1. We need to pray for unity because we desperately need each other.
“So we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another” (Romans 12:5 ESV).
Within the context of Intentional Life Media, the ministry wouldn’t be able to operate without the finance department or the programming department. It couldn’t function without the marketing team or broadcast systems. All the things that happen in individual areas of the organization couldn’t occur because each depends on the other to function efficiently. We are only healthy as the whole body, then we can be successful within the different areas.
When Paul wrote this Scripture, he was thinking about the world church and that still applies in a big way, but how do we make it practical for us today? Each one of us is chosen. You find your meaning and function as a part of His body. We find ourselves fashioned into marvelous functional parts of Christ’s body.
When we think of a church, it’s not brick and mortar; it’s wherever the body of believers are gathered. Let’s just go ahead and be what we were made to be – one in Christ – without our pride comparing ourselves with each other or trying to do something that we aren’t equipped to do.
2. We need to pray for unity because the world will see God’s love.
The unity we have as a Family Life Radio community is evident in the stories shared across all our platforms. We have such a powerful, listener supported community that make it possible for thousands to hear about how the world will see God’s love because of our unity.
Our unity together as a body of believers as form of worship.
• Paul said, “Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God” (Romans 15:7 NIV).
• Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.
• By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35 ESV).
3. We need to pray for unity because we can do infinitely more together.
Amazing ministry occurs as we partner with you, other listeners, and groups like the Crisis Pregnancy Centers, Compassion International and other community ministry partners with the same passion and the desire to bring Jesus to a loss hurting world.
That’s how the power of the Holy Spirit worked in the early church in Acts. “Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common” (Acts 4:32 ESV). The whole congregation of believers united as one heart and one mind. They sold their stuff and gave it back to the church. They made sacrifices for the community to be better.
United Community
That’s what happens here in this family of believers – your Family Life Radio community. You pray for each other; you give to see that one another’s needs are met. You make sure that people across the network have what they need so that when God prompts someone to listen, they get the comfort, peace and answers from Him at just the right time.
Think about all the effort and energy invested in building The Great Wall of China. The people built this wall to protect themselves from General Khan and the Mongols. But in the first one hundred years after the wall was built, China was invaded three times. The invading armies didn’t break down the wall or repel over the top of it. The invasion happened from the inside out. They bribed some guards and were allowed passage through a cave.
Now, stop and think about that for just a minute within the context of who we are as a community. The evil one is the one that we’re against, not each other. He wants us to have division. If we don’t protect our unity, we open the gate to the enemy.
It’s vitally important to strive for unity and do everything we can to promote it.
Jesus prayed that we may be brought to complete unity, just as He is One with the Father. Jesus prayed to God the Father on your behalf. He didn’t pray just for the Disciples at that time, but for all believers.
“That all of them may be one, Father, just as you 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. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (John 17:21-23 NIV).
God uses us – imperfect, divided, and different – to bring about his Kingdom on earth. He decides to use broken imperfect people that are passionate about Jesus Christ and the message of the gospel. This is a community of grace, a community united in Him.
Will you pray for unity today?
Evan Carlson serves as CEO and President of Family Life Radio and Intentional Living. Growing up in a ministry home and seeing firsthand what it means to sacrificially serve in a faith based nonprofit organization, Evan has developed a strong heart for helping people experience hope in Christ. Evan and his wife, Kelly along with their two daughters live in Tucson Arizona which is home to the Family Life Radio ministry corporate center.