Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

I found this exhortation by Andrew Murray most refreshing for
the current state of the division of the body.  I hope we as
a body will make our Lord's prayer our own:

	"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."
	John 17:20-21

in Christ,
wes

--

"...the fruit of the Spirit is love..."

	Galatians 5:22

"...the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by
the Holy Ghost which is given unto us."

	Romans 5:5

"...love is the fulfilling of the law..."

	Romans 13:10

"By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples,
if ye have love one to another."

	John 13:35

--

Why are we taught that "the fruit of the Spirit is love"?
Because the Spirit of God has come to make our daily life an
exhibition of divine power and a revelation of what
God can do for His children.

In the second and the fourth chapters of Acts, we read that the
disciples were of one heart and of one soul.  During the three
years they had walked with Christ, they never had been in that spirit.
All Christ's teaching could not make them of one heart and one soul.
But the Holy Spirit came from heaven and shed the love of God in their
hearts, and they were of one heart and one soul.  The same Holy
Spirit that brought the love of heaven into their hearts must fill us, too.
Nothing less will do.  Even as Christ did, one might preach love for
three years with the tongue of an angel, but that would not teach
any man to love unless the power of the Holy Spirit should come upon
him to bring the love of heaven into his heart.

Think of the Church at large.  What divisions!  Thing of the different
bodies.  Take the question of holiness, take the question of the cleansing
blood, take the question of the baptism of the Spirit -- what differences
are caused among dear believers by such questions!  That there are
differences of opinion does not trouble me.  We do not have the same
constitution and temperament and mind.  But how often hate, bitterness,
contempt, separation, and unlovingness are caused by the holiest truths
of God's Word!  Our doctrines, our creeds, have been more important than
love.  We often think we are valiant for the truth, and we forget God's
command to speak the truth in love.  And it was so in the time of the
Reformation between the Lutheran and Calvinistic churches.  What
bitterness there was in regard to communion, which was meant to be the bond
of union among all believers!  And so, through the ages, the very dearest
truths of God have become mountains that have separated us.

If we want to pray in power, and if we want to expect the Holy Spirit to
come down in power, and if we indeed want God to pour out His Spirit, we
must enter into a convenant with God that we will love one another with
a heavenly love.

Are you ready for that?  Only that is true love that is large enough to
take in all God's children, the most unloving and unlovable and unworthy
and unbearable and trying.  If my vow -- absolute surrender to God -- was
sincere, then it must mean absolute surrender to the divine love to fill me.
I must be a servant of love to love every child of God around me.
"The fruit of the Spirit is love."

Oh, God did something wonderful when He gave Christ, at His right hand,
the Holy Spirit to come down out of the heart of the Father and His
everlasting love.  And how we have degraded the Holy Spirit into a mere
power by which we have to do our work!  God forgive us!  Oh, that the
Holy Spirit might be held in honor as a power to fill us with the very
life and nature of God and of Christ!