In his sermon entitled, "One Holy Church," Pastor Samuel explored what the Nicene Creed means by calling the Church one and holy, and invited us to rediscover the Church not as “they,” but as “we”—God’s redeemed people, called to unity, repentance, and faithful witness.
We invite you to spend the next five days reflecting and praying through this devotional based on that message.
We invite you to spend the next five days reflecting and praying through this devotional based on that message.
Day 1: Called into One Body
Rest: Take 2 minutes of silence and invite God - Father, Son, and Spirit - to draw near to you in this time.
Read: Ephesians 4:1-6
Reflect: Unity in the Church is not a human achievement, it is a divine declaration. Paul writes to the Ephesians with urgency, listing seven expressions of oneness that define the Church: one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all. Notice that Paul does not instruct believers to create unity but to preserve it. The unity already exists because Christ has already accomplished it. Our task is to guard what God has given. This requires humility, gentleness, and patience, qualities that do not come naturally but are cultivated through daily surrender to the Spirit. Where in your relationships are you being called to preserve rather than fracture unity today?
Consider a relationship within your church community that has grown distant or strained. What would it look like to take one step toward preserving unity in that relationship this week?
Pause and talk with the Lord honestly about all of the thoughts and feelings that arise in you as you reflect on this.
Make it Tangible: Write down the name of a person in your congregation with whom you have experienced tension. Commit to praying for them by name each morning this week, asking God to soften your heart toward them before any conversation takes place.
Respond: Spend a moment thanking God for this time, invite Him to continue to speak throughout this day, and close by praying the "Our Father".
Read: Ephesians 4:1-6
Reflect: Unity in the Church is not a human achievement, it is a divine declaration. Paul writes to the Ephesians with urgency, listing seven expressions of oneness that define the Church: one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all. Notice that Paul does not instruct believers to create unity but to preserve it. The unity already exists because Christ has already accomplished it. Our task is to guard what God has given. This requires humility, gentleness, and patience, qualities that do not come naturally but are cultivated through daily surrender to the Spirit. Where in your relationships are you being called to preserve rather than fracture unity today?
Consider a relationship within your church community that has grown distant or strained. What would it look like to take one step toward preserving unity in that relationship this week?
Pause and talk with the Lord honestly about all of the thoughts and feelings that arise in you as you reflect on this.
Make it Tangible: Write down the name of a person in your congregation with whom you have experienced tension. Commit to praying for them by name each morning this week, asking God to soften your heart toward them before any conversation takes place.
Respond: Spend a moment thanking God for this time, invite Him to continue to speak throughout this day, and close by praying the "Our Father".
Day 2: The Body Cannot Divide Itself
Rest: Take 2 minutes of silence and invite God - Father, Son, and Spirit - to draw near to you in this time.
Read: 1 Corinthians 12:12-27
Reflect: Paul's image of the body is one of the most enduring metaphors in the New Testament. No part of the human body functions in isolation, and no member of the Church was designed to live in spiritual isolation either. The eye cannot dismiss the hand. The head cannot discard the feet. Every member carries dignity because every member was placed by God. The parts that seem weakest are often the most necessary. This means the voices we are most tempted to silence or overlook in our congregations may be the very voices the Spirit is using to bring balance and health to the whole. Whose voice have you been dismissing?
Think honestly about which members of your church community you tend to undervalue. What assumptions or preferences are driving that tendency? How does Paul's vision of the body challenge those assumptions?
Pause and talk with the Lord honestly about all of the thoughts and feelings that arise in you as you reflect on this.
Make it Tangible: This week, intentionally seek out someone in your congregation whose background or personality differs significantly from yours. Spend some time in conversation with them. Listen more than you speak, and ask God to show you what He has placed in them that you may have been missing.
Respond: Spend a moment thanking God for this time, invite Him to continue to speak throughout this day, and close by praying the "Our Father".
Read: 1 Corinthians 12:12-27
Reflect: Paul's image of the body is one of the most enduring metaphors in the New Testament. No part of the human body functions in isolation, and no member of the Church was designed to live in spiritual isolation either. The eye cannot dismiss the hand. The head cannot discard the feet. Every member carries dignity because every member was placed by God. The parts that seem weakest are often the most necessary. This means the voices we are most tempted to silence or overlook in our congregations may be the very voices the Spirit is using to bring balance and health to the whole. Whose voice have you been dismissing?
Think honestly about which members of your church community you tend to undervalue. What assumptions or preferences are driving that tendency? How does Paul's vision of the body challenge those assumptions?
Pause and talk with the Lord honestly about all of the thoughts and feelings that arise in you as you reflect on this.
Make it Tangible: This week, intentionally seek out someone in your congregation whose background or personality differs significantly from yours. Spend some time in conversation with them. Listen more than you speak, and ask God to show you what He has placed in them that you may have been missing.
Respond: Spend a moment thanking God for this time, invite Him to continue to speak throughout this day, and close by praying the "Our Father".
Day 3: Holy, Yet Broken
Rest: Take 2 minutes of silence and invite God - Father, Son, and Spirit - to draw near to you in this time.
Read: 2 Timothy 3:14-17 and Colossians 3:14-17
Reflect: The Corinthian church offers us a striking paradox: Paul addresses them as those who have been made holy to God in Christ Jesus, and then within the same letter confronts them for divisions, factions, and moral failures so severe that even the surrounding culture was scandalized. How can a community be simultaneously holy and broken? The answer lies in understanding that holiness is not a human accomplishment. It is a status granted by God through Christ and a process sustained by the Spirit. The Church is holy not because its members are perfect but because its Head is. This truth should produce both humility and hope in equal measure.
Have you ever walked away from a church community because of its brokenness? Reflecting on the Corinthian example, how does it reframe your understanding of what the Church is meant to be versus what it often is? How does God's grace speak into that gap?
Pause and talk with the Lord honestly about all of the thoughts and feelings that arise in you as you reflect on this.
Make it Tangible: Spend time in honest prayer today, asking God to reveal any area of your own life where you have contributed to the brokenness of your community, whether through gossip, withdrawal, criticism, or silence. Write a brief prayer of repentance and commit it to God, trusting that His holiness covers and transforms what your effort alone cannot fix.
Respond: Spend a moment thanking God for this time, invite Him to continue to speak throughout this day, and close by praying the "Our Father".
Read: 2 Timothy 3:14-17 and Colossians 3:14-17
Reflect: The Corinthian church offers us a striking paradox: Paul addresses them as those who have been made holy to God in Christ Jesus, and then within the same letter confronts them for divisions, factions, and moral failures so severe that even the surrounding culture was scandalized. How can a community be simultaneously holy and broken? The answer lies in understanding that holiness is not a human accomplishment. It is a status granted by God through Christ and a process sustained by the Spirit. The Church is holy not because its members are perfect but because its Head is. This truth should produce both humility and hope in equal measure.
Have you ever walked away from a church community because of its brokenness? Reflecting on the Corinthian example, how does it reframe your understanding of what the Church is meant to be versus what it often is? How does God's grace speak into that gap?
Pause and talk with the Lord honestly about all of the thoughts and feelings that arise in you as you reflect on this.
Make it Tangible: Spend time in honest prayer today, asking God to reveal any area of your own life where you have contributed to the brokenness of your community, whether through gossip, withdrawal, criticism, or silence. Write a brief prayer of repentance and commit it to God, trusting that His holiness covers and transforms what your effort alone cannot fix.
Respond: Spend a moment thanking God for this time, invite Him to continue to speak throughout this day, and close by praying the "Our Father".
Day 4: Set Apart to Reflect
Rest: Take 2 minutes of silence and invite God - Father, Son, and Spirit - to draw near to you in this time.
Read: 1 Peter 2:9-12
Reflect: Peter reminds believers that their identity is not self-constructed. They are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God. These are not descriptions of spiritual elitism. They are descriptions of purpose. The Church is set apart not to withdraw from the world but to live differently within it. Jesus himself modeled this tension for us. He was holy and yet He ate with sinners, touched lepers, welcomed outsiders, and confronted injustice. His holiness did not repel broken people. It drew them in because it was saturated with grace. The closer we come to Christ, the more our holiness should look like compassion rather than condemnation.
In what ways has your understanding of holiness caused you to withdraw from people rather than move toward them? How might a grace-filled holiness change the way you engage with those outside the Church?
Pause and talk with the Lord honestly about all of the thoughts and feelings that arise in you as you reflect on this.
Make it Tangible: Identify one person in your life who does not yet follow Christ. Consider one practical, gracious act of service or presence you can offer them this week, not as a strategy for conversion but as a genuine expression of the love of Christ living in you. Holiness that attracts rather than repels begins with small, consistent acts of love.
Respond: Spend a moment thanking God for this time, invite Him to continue to speak throughout this day, and close by praying the "Our Father".
Read: 1 Peter 2:9-12
Reflect: Peter reminds believers that their identity is not self-constructed. They are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God. These are not descriptions of spiritual elitism. They are descriptions of purpose. The Church is set apart not to withdraw from the world but to live differently within it. Jesus himself modeled this tension for us. He was holy and yet He ate with sinners, touched lepers, welcomed outsiders, and confronted injustice. His holiness did not repel broken people. It drew them in because it was saturated with grace. The closer we come to Christ, the more our holiness should look like compassion rather than condemnation.
In what ways has your understanding of holiness caused you to withdraw from people rather than move toward them? How might a grace-filled holiness change the way you engage with those outside the Church?
Pause and talk with the Lord honestly about all of the thoughts and feelings that arise in you as you reflect on this.
Make it Tangible: Identify one person in your life who does not yet follow Christ. Consider one practical, gracious act of service or presence you can offer them this week, not as a strategy for conversion but as a genuine expression of the love of Christ living in you. Holiness that attracts rather than repels begins with small, consistent acts of love.
Respond: Spend a moment thanking God for this time, invite Him to continue to speak throughout this day, and close by praying the "Our Father".
Day 5: The Church Belongs to God
Rest: Take 2 minutes of silence and invite God - Father, Son, and Spirit - to draw near to you in this time.
Read: John 17:20-23 and Matthew 16:18
Reflect: Before Jesus went to the cross, He prayed for the unity of every believer who would come after the first disciples, including you. He prayed that they would be one so that the world would believe. Our unity is not merely an internal matter of congregational health. It is a public witness to the reality of God. When the Church is visibly divided, the watching world has reason to doubt. When the Church loves across difference, forgives across offense, and serves across preference, the world encounters something it cannot manufacture on its own. Jesus declared that He would build His Church, and He has staked His own reputation on that promise. He is not abandoning His Bride. Neither should we.
When you think of the global Church, what emotions arise? Discouragement? Hope? Indifference? How does the knowledge that Jesus is actively building His Church across every nation and generation change the way you see your own local congregation and your role within it?
Pause and talk with the Lord honestly about all of the thoughts and feelings that arise in you as you reflect on this.
Make it Tangible: Pastor Samuel encourged us, when we feel critical and hopeless about the state of the Church, to lift our eyes from our own context and look at what God is doing in the broader global church. Watch an online church service from a church in another part of the world in a language different than your own (I recommend checking out Kasr El-Dobara in Cairo, but the Lord is building His Church all over the world - pick a country that you are curious about). This can be a glimpse of heaven, when every tongue and people and nation will gather to worship the Lord as one.
Respond: Spend a moment thanking God for this time, invite Him to continue to speak throughout this day, and close by praying the "Our Father".
Read: John 17:20-23 and Matthew 16:18
Reflect: Before Jesus went to the cross, He prayed for the unity of every believer who would come after the first disciples, including you. He prayed that they would be one so that the world would believe. Our unity is not merely an internal matter of congregational health. It is a public witness to the reality of God. When the Church is visibly divided, the watching world has reason to doubt. When the Church loves across difference, forgives across offense, and serves across preference, the world encounters something it cannot manufacture on its own. Jesus declared that He would build His Church, and He has staked His own reputation on that promise. He is not abandoning His Bride. Neither should we.
When you think of the global Church, what emotions arise? Discouragement? Hope? Indifference? How does the knowledge that Jesus is actively building His Church across every nation and generation change the way you see your own local congregation and your role within it?
Pause and talk with the Lord honestly about all of the thoughts and feelings that arise in you as you reflect on this.
Make it Tangible: Pastor Samuel encourged us, when we feel critical and hopeless about the state of the Church, to lift our eyes from our own context and look at what God is doing in the broader global church. Watch an online church service from a church in another part of the world in a language different than your own (I recommend checking out Kasr El-Dobara in Cairo, but the Lord is building His Church all over the world - pick a country that you are curious about). This can be a glimpse of heaven, when every tongue and people and nation will gather to worship the Lord as one.
Respond: Spend a moment thanking God for this time, invite Him to continue to speak throughout this day, and close by praying the "Our Father".
A Closing Prayer
Father, Son, Spirit: have mercy and forgive where we, the Church, have fallen short. Cleanse what has been stained, and breathe Your Spirit into our fractured pieces so that we may become like beautiful stained glass, reflecting Your light and love to a broken world. Amen.
Father, Son, Spirit: have mercy and forgive where we, the Church, have fallen short. Cleanse what has been stained, and breathe Your Spirit into our fractured pieces so that we may become like beautiful stained glass, reflecting Your light and love to a broken world. Amen.