“If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?”
That verse does not leave us much room to hide. It brings love down to the level where we live and asks the hard question. If I cannot love the brother or sister I see every week, how can I claim to love a God I have never seen?
We are family. Every believer, whatever name or background they come from, has the same Father. When we forget that, we start to treat each other like strangers instead of siblings. And sadly, there is far too much meanness in the Christian world today. Too much pride, too much criticism, too much hurt disguised as holiness.
But the Word of God shows us something better. Paul told Timothy to treat the older men like fathers, the older women like mothers, the younger men like brothers, and the younger women like sisters with all purity. God’s family is meant to feel like home, not like a courtroom. When the household of God lives that way, love replaces competition and grace replaces judgment.
True Christian unity does not mean we agree on every detail. It means we love one another even when we do not. It means we stay at the table when we would rather walk away. It means we choose to see each other not through the lens of who is right, but through the eyes of the Father who loves us both.
Romans 15:5-6 says, “Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus: That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Unity is not uniformity. It is not pretending to be the same. It is many hearts beating for the same purpose: to glorify Christ.
When you read John 17, remember that it is not a command for us to obey. It is a prayer Jesus prayed to His Father. He was not telling us to create unity; He was thanking the Father for the unity that already exists in Him. The oneness Jesus spoke of is not an ecumenical project or a human agreement. It is the miracle of the new birth. Those who have received His Word, who His truth has sanctified, and who have been called out of the world are already one in Him.
The problem is not that unity has not been given. The problem is that we have not chosen to live out of it.
When we walk in the Spirit, we are living from a union that is already real. The Holy Spirit does not need to make us one; He reveals that we already are one in Christ. The same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives in you and lives in me. The more aware we are of Him, the more natural love becomes.
Unity is not something we must strive for; it is something we must awaken to. When you recognize that Christ lives in the believer you have been arguing with, you stop trying to win the argument and start listening to the heart. When you realize that His Spirit has joined you both in the same body, you stop competing for position and start caring for one another’s wounds.
That is why pride destroys unity. Pride says, “My experience is truer than yours.” Grace says, “Christ in you is the same Christ in me.” Pride divides. Grace binds.
In a sound New Testament church, believers are not only attending the same services, they are walking in the same Spirit. They are united in purpose even if they differ in preference. They have one mission: to know Jesus and make Him known.
There is a false kind of unity in the world today that ignores truth for the sake of peace. But the unity Jesus prayed for is built on truth, not on compromise. It is the unity of those who have believed, obeyed, and been set apart by God’s Word of truth.
The early church had no grand buildings or programs, but they had one heart. They broke bread together. They prayed together. They rejoiced and wept together. Their unity was not political; it was personal. They loved one another because they shared the same Spirit.
And the world noticed. Jesus said,
“By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”
The world will not know we are His by our music, our methods, or our size. It will know by our love.
We talk about loving the lost, but do we love the found? Do we love the ones who sit a few pews away and see things differently? Do we love the believers who rub us the wrong way? You cannot be right about God and wrong about love.
If we truly understood who our Father is, we would treat His children differently. You do not get to pick your spiritual siblings, but you do get to choose whether you will love them.
Most church divisions are not about doctrine; they are about pride. We get offended and justify our offense. We turn hurt feelings into holy wars. But if you strip away the words, it is often just self-righteousness wearing religious clothes.
Real unity does not ignore sin, but it refuses to stop loving in the middle of it. It calls us back to the cross, where all our pride was crucified and all our boasting died.
At the cross, every wall we built to keep others out comes down. Jew and Gentile. Slave and free. Rich and poor. Educated and uneducated. At the foot of the cross, there are no big people or little people. There are only forgiven people.
That is where unity begins. Not in agreement, but in grace. Not in sameness, but in surrender.
When you live from that place, love becomes natural. You stop seeing others through the eyes of suspicion and start seeing them through the love of the Father. You see past their mistakes and remember their identity in Christ. You see a brother instead of a rival, a sister instead of a stranger.
When the world sees that kind of love, it will no longer need to ask if God is real. It will see Him in us.