Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit…There is one body, and one Spirit.
—Ephesians 4:3-4
From Paul we learn how the Christian communities in different places ought to remember each other in the fellowship of prayer. He pointed out how God is glorified in such prayer. So he wrote more than once about how the ministry of intercession abounds to the glory of God. (See 2 Corinthians 1:11; 9:14.)
In today’s church, there is a great need for the children of God throughout the world to be drawn close together in the knowledge of having been chosen by God to be a holy priesthood (see 1 Peter 2:9), ministering continually the “sacrifice of praise” (Jeremiah 33:11) and prayer. There is too little distinction between the world and the body of Christ; in the lives of many of God’s children there is little difference from what the world is. It is a question of great importance: what can be done to foster the unity of the Spirit?
Nothing will help so much as the separation to a life of more prayer, interceding that God’s people may prove their unity in a life of holiness and love. That will be a living testimony to the world of what it means to live for God. When Paul wrote, “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints” (Ephesians 6:18), he named one of the essential differences between God’s people and the world.
You say you desire to bear this mark of the children of God, and to be able to pray for them so that you may prove to yourself and to others that you are indeed not of the world. Resolve in your life to carry with you this one great distinctive feature of the true Christian—a life of prayer and intercession. Join with God’s children who are unceasingly seeking God with one accord to maintain the “unity of the Spirit” and the body of Christ, to “be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might” (Ephesians 6:10), and to pray a blessing upon His church. Let none of us think it too much to give fifteen minutes every day for meditation on some word of God connected with His promises to His church, and then to plead with Him for its fulfillment. Slowly yet surely, you will taste the blessedness of being one, heart and soul, with God’s people, and you will receive the power to pray “the effectual fervent prayer…[that] availeth much” (James 5:16).