Before you read today’s devotion, it is important for you to pause and ponder on today’s key verses, John 17:20-21. The last thing Jesus did before He went to the Garden of Gethsemane was to pray these words for you and me. What did He pray?

“My prayer is not for them (His Disciples) alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message (That’s you and me and every other Christian alive today). (Jesus prayed) that all of them may be ONE, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be ONE in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”

I grew up in the Christian Church. So from the time I was a rug rat in the nursery, I was drilled on the basics of what we call the “Restoration Movement.” Those two words pretty much defined for me the kind of Christian I wanted to grow up to be.

I learned about our Church forefathers (flamboyant early-American preachers like Alexander Campbell, Barton W. Stone, Abner Jones and “Raccoon” John Smith). And I learned that in the years following the American Revolution, those frontier preachers all reached the same conclusion: it is not God’s will for the Church of Jesus Christ to be divided into denominations.

Back then, “non-denominational” was a radical concept, because those men had grown up as Quakers, Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans and Catholics. They had been educated in seminaries that taught them the disciplines of “doing Church the right way” according to their denomination’s rigid rules and traditions.

But isolated on the American frontier (where organized religion had not yet taken root), afforded the freedom to fellowship with each other and exchange ideas. So, they studied the Bible and worshiped together. Eventually they reached several conclusions:

1. Our differences in doctrine are non-essentials when they have nothing to do with being saved and going to Heaven.
2. We all serve the same Lord and share one faith. And our Lord prayed for us to be one Church united by Him and in Him.
3. His will is for us to join hands and fight the Devil as we spread the glorious Good News of the Gospel.
4. In the book of Acts, God showed us what this looked like, because everyone was dedicated to give Jesus the GLORY by living, loving, serving. and witnessing for Jesus together.

The theological basis on which our frontier fathers could get together was simply the Bible. They said: “Let’s restore the New Testament Church! Let’s study the book of Acts and teach what the Apostles taught and emulate the behavior of the early Christians.”

So those men and women adopted this slogan: “Where the Bible speaks, we will speak. But where the Bible is silent, we will be silent.”

They added: “In doctrine, let there be unity. In matters of opinion, let there be liberty. But in all things, let there be love.”

Those simple ideals opened the door for unity to happen with this definition: “Who is my sister? Who is my brother? It is anyone who has seen the light and is walking by all the light they have seen.”

Today at Pinedale, we are trying to honor Jesus’s prayer by following the Restoration Movement ideals. When anyone asks for a written-down statement of Faith, we hand them the Bible and say, “Here it is” because we believe in “doing Bible things in the Bible’s way.”

That is why we say, “We are not the only Christians. We are just Christians only” (because Acts 11:26 says the early Disciples were called Christians).

And that is why the practice of our faith is very simple: we teach Repentance followed by believer’s baptism; we take Communion every time we gather for worship; and we call our leaders Elders and Deacons (because that is how the early Church did it).

Pinedale Christian Church is not a perfect Church. We never will be because we are imperfect people. Jesus knew that when He prayed those words in John 17: “May they also be ONE IN US.” Jesus knew that His Holy Spirit would empower and repair our Church if we were willing to never forget to stay humble and depend on His grace.

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General Dwight Eisenhower looked around the room at the Allied leaders who were helping him finalize the plans for the D-Day invasion of Normandy. There were so many different opinions and selfish egos in that room. But Ike knew that the operation at hand was crucial to achieve the victory over Hitler’s evil empire.

History records that he quelled the debate and discord with these simple words: “Men ... It’s one team, or we all lose.” You know the rest of that story. The mission was accomplished because everyone focused on the same noble objective.