DEVOTION//Tuning fork unity

Jesus said, "I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one" (John 17:11).

God's Word as a tuning fork

I've watched a piano tuner open the cabinet of my church's piano so he could gently tighten -- or loosen -- the strings until they sounded exactly on pitch. He used a tuning fork to compare a string's tone with the fork's ideal tone. Then he adjusted the string until it hit the right pitch.

God's Word is the tuning fork for our lives. We Christians seek to adjust our thoughts, our actions, our lives to the sweet tones of the God's love for us in Jesus. We never seek to adjust God's Word to sound in harmony with the pitch of our values.

God's Word tunes his Church

Take that metaphor a step further. When Christians use the same tuning fork -- the same understanding of the Scriptures -- to tune their lives, their lives will all sound the same pitch.

A.W. Tozer in The Pursuit of God wrote:  “Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow."

God's people tuned to unity

I recently attended a worship service in Africa with Christians whose faith was tuned with the same tuning fork as my own. We shared the same high regard for the Bible as God's Word. We found comfort and strength in the same grace that alone has forgiven us and guaranteed us heaven. We celebrated our Savior's embrace as we communed together.

We were Christians separated by a third of the planet's circumference. We were Christians from remarkably different cultures. We dressed differently, spoke different languages, inhabited different body types. Yet, tuned by the same Bible-based faith, we sounded the same tone. We were united in faith, in worship, and in eternal destiny.

A fully-tuned unity to pray and work for

This is the unity Jesus prayed his entire Church would enjoy. A unity not based on similar traditions or rituals, but a unity based on the proper understanding of his Word. It is this unity we also strive for with all other Christians and the unity that we celebrate when we find it. This is the unity that 316NOW prays will develop with our students in China. We invite you to join us in this prayer.