For us today – we could say Unity to God is like the Oil of the Holy Spirit which He poured out on Yeshua our High Priest. Unity in that Psalm is like an empowering – an anointing of a Priest – like the anointing of oil for David as King – A setting apart for Service to God.
Unity is like the anointing of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost on those disciples.
So we can either:
Hold on to “why we are better than others who are different in beliefs, or denomination!” Why we are right and that makes everyone else wrong. Hold that thought, all the way into Hell.
Or we like a family and a community can embrace those brothers, whom God made sons of Abraham and He called us all together to be brothers of Yeshua – in all our ignorance and our many flaws, from our many races, cultures and from various religious backgrounds.
In that unity of family – our prayers can come together and God can anoint us with the oil we so desperately need and set us apart for service to Him …
1Pe 2:9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light:
Re 1:6 And hath made us kings and priests unto God, his Father; to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
We are called to serve in these offices as Kings and Priests. We need the anointing only unity can provide for us. Ps 133 — How good and how pleasant it is, that brothers dwell together in Unity. Unity is like the Oil of anointing of Aaron the High Priest poured out on him and runs down in abundance.
Nowhere but in the Family of God can you serve inside the inner court of Gods Temple with prayer and worship to the Holy One of Israel, despite you being locked up in Mc Neil Island prison. What could be more glorious?
Let us come together and ask for the Unity that God will honor. Pray together in the Unity which came from God’s calling so that God Himself can anoint us to be what God called and predestined us to be.
These ideas are not my own—another man followed those Apostles – only 300 years ago.
Nicholas Louis von Zinzendorf, a Count of Saxony, was an unusual nobleman. As a teenager, Zinzendorf was taking the grand European tour customary for young noblemen of his time.
While in the art museum of Dusseldorf, he saw a painting of Christ crowned with thorns. The Latin inscription read, “I have done this for you; what have you done for me?”
God did something inside Zinzendorf, for from that moment, he decided to dedicate himself to Christian service in some way.
The opportunity to engage in service came three years later in 1722. Zinzendorf heard about the carpenter, Christian David, who was promoting the cause of the Unitas Fratrum…in Latin that means Unity of the Brethren.
After speaking with Christian David, Zinzendorf invited the Unitas Fratrum (Unity of Brethren) to refuge on his estate. By June of that year, a small band arrived to begin the settlement on his estate. Word spread rapidly that Zinzendorf was harboring religious refugees on his estate, and the little community grew into a thriving village of various faiths. The Unitas Fratrum were designated from the rest by their country of origin, Moravia, so they came to be known as Moravians.
But all was not well in the little community of Unity? The various ethnic backgrounds and religious persuasions led to inevitable conflict, griping and dissension among its 300 inhabitants. By 1727, tensions had risen to a height. “Differences of opinion and heated controversy on doctrinal questions threatened to disrupt the congregation.
The majority were members of the Ancient Moravian Church of the Brethren. But other believers had also been attracted to the community. Lutherans, Reformed, Baptists, etc., had joined the community. Questions of predestination, holiness, the meaning and mode of baptism, etc seemed likely to divide the believers into a number of small and opposing sects.” Let us add Rapture timing, Assurance of Salvation, (O.S.A.S), New Perspectives on Paul, Calvinism vs Arminian — so that they sound just like our group here?
Fortunately, in the midst of this tension, Zinzendorf and others were actively engaged in intercessory prayer for the community, and on August 13, 1727, those prayers were answered.
On that date, Wednesday Aug 13th 1727 on the 27th of Av, 3 days before the month of Elul — the community assembled for a communion service. In the service, the community felt the presence of the Holy Spirit.
People wept and begged forgiveness of one another. They shared the cup and bread as one community united.
“They had quit judging each other because they had become convinced, each one, of his lack of worth in the sight of God and each felt himself at this communion to be in view of the noble countenance of the Savior.”
Shortly after this meeting, the Moravians began the hourly intercession in prayer.
This prayer vigil consisted of a rotating assignment of one man and one woman from the community praying every hour of the day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. This prayer vigil continued without interruption for over 100 years. Imagine a 100 Year prayer meeting!
From this near Pentecostal experience of the coming of the Holy Spirit and the intense devotion of the Hourly Intercession, the Moravian Church would launch a most extraordinary missionary movement.
After the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on that small community of 300 sent missionaries all over the world, they revolutionized and founded the idea of missions. The Moravians didn’t confine their work to the West Indies. In 1733, Christian David led a band of Moravians to Greenland to help out Danish missionary Hans Egede. In 1737, George Schmidt went to South Africa to evangelize the Hottentots. Other Moravian missions in the 18th century included Jamaica, Barbados, Guyana, the Carolinas, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and London. By the 19th century, the Moravians had expanded to East Africa, Alaska, Canada, Honduras, Nicaragua, California, Australia, Tibet (now moved to India), and Jerusalem. From the humble beginnings in that small community, the Holy Spirit prompted the Moravian church to encircle the globe. They also influenced John Wesley and many other great men of God while a missionary in the America’s.
In conclusion we can be very similar. In unity we can go from students, like the Moravians to Missionaries. Just as the disciples went from fishermen to students to being Empowered Teachers to changers of the world. Can your God do that?
We are a band of refugees – from all walks of life and all faiths meeting at Mc Neil. We are shortly to be scattered by the Dept of Corrections to various facilities all over Washington.
We can come together – embracing the idea of Unitas Fratrum – Unity of brethren – in one accord.
In prayer we too can ask for such an outpouring of God’s Spirit as they did, and the Apostles before them – and equip us for the missionary work, which each of us will be called to do, where we are going.
Let us use these last few meetings at Mc Neil to make the hours count, and prepare ourselves to be able to witness for God, grounded in the Power of God’s word. Regardless of our gifts and our calling—Unity and an anointing of God’s Power is needed by each one of us. Being saved and content is not our destiny or end. God called us to do more. Who else is on this Island to further his kingdom?
With only hours to live and Jesus great trial and murder to begin, He prayed while sweating drops of blood.
What was so weighty and what was on His mind?
Jesus’ last recorded prayer — was for you and me.
John 17 v 20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21that 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. 22I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: 23I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
Jesus did not pray for unity among his disciples but for those that would follow after them – You and me.
Three times He asked God Himself that we may have unity and be one. Our Unity tells all of McNeil—that God sent Jesus and that God loves us as He loved Jesus. Perhaps Yeshua knew there would be hundreds of different Denominations — all claiming to represent the God of unity and family and not willing to pray for each other, or to fellowship with each other.
Will Jesus prayer for Unity be answered in our group or was He wasting His dying breath?
It is my belief He will sweep away what divides us in the next Revival.
