The Uniform

 Greetings to you all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,

     John 17:20-21 says, “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;   That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.” 

     Uniforms make you stand out from the crowd .  I wore a uniform for nine years while in the U. S. Navy.  In the summer, it was a white uniform and in the winter, it was a blue uniform.  It had all of the markings of a uniform of the United States Navy.  We had some opportunities to be in foreign countries.  Before we were allowed to go on shore, the Captain of the ship would give a short lecture to the crew to be careful while ashore as we were going to be obvious representatives of our government and we were not to make any international incidents.  Our  actions were expected to be acceptable as members of our country.

     The believer has no uniform to mark them as a Christian.  Some try to make it known by some outside object such as a cross or a Bible but we well know that isn’t the item that shows the world that we are believers.  Francis Shaffer wrote a book titled, “The Mark of the Christian.”  The main scripture for the book was the passage above.  “...all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee…”  The result of this unity will reflect  to the world that the Father sent the Son.  Notice the words, “...that  thou hast sent me.”  That  is a heavy responsibility when  you think about it.  The church in the first century was turning the world upside down with the message of the Gospel.  Peter’s first and second sermons  resulted in 8,000 new believers.  Something was obviously different between the church during the time of Peter and John   and the church of today.  What has caused the difference?  Some people blame Constantine  for causing the problem when he made Christianity the state religion of Rome.  The downward slide began in almost every aspect of the cultures of the world including art, music, literature and education.  The church of today is so close to the world that it is seemingly difficult to see any difference.  Bickering and fighting along with wrong doctrine does not show the world that the Father sent the Son, but rather gives people an excuse as to why they don’t want to attend church.  The common replay when asked to go to a church is, “The church is fulll of hypocrites.”  Our “Captain”, the Lord Himself has given us the instructions of how we are to live the Christian life but have made our lives more like the life of the unbeliever instead.  Paul said in Second Corinthians that we are “ambassadors” and in Philippians that we have our citizenship in heaven.  May we be reminded of this as we seek to live  out our lives as believers in a world that needs to see more good examples of Christian living.  Praise God for the charge that He has given to us all.