June 7, 2021
Please use the comment section on this page to share insights from today’s reading OR your own personal Bible reading.
Reading along with us in John? Here’s today’s reading:
John 17 (NIV)
Jesus Prays to Be Glorified
1 After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed:
“Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. 2 For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. 3 Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent......Continue Reading
Jesus prayed first for God’s glory through the completion of His work through Jesus on earth, then for the disciples, and then for believers. Facing this horrible death His focus is still on His Father and on others. His example of trust and dependence is evident in His desire to put others first and God’s plan is first priority.
To have the mind of Christ, to be so dependent on God like this should be our goal so much so that every choice we make should be the one God desires for us that we might be open vessels ready for Him to work through at all times!
John 17
John 17
Can’t believe I missed the most awesome part of scripture. The last supper. Jesus is about to suffer the worst physical pain imaginable and he puts out to the apostles the greatest promise from God to Man. Over snd over again. I will be with you. My peace I leave you. Do not fear. I’m going to prepare a place for you. All about them!! Now in John 17. We can listen in to the greatest of all conversations. Jesus snd his father. Unbelievable. PROTECT THEM BY MY NAME! FULL MEASURE OF MY JOY WITHIN THEM!
ONE WITH JESUS AND GOD! I’m bursting inside when I read this truth!!!!
Mark, I felt this way too! What an incredibly encouraging chapter!
““Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.””
John 17:25-26 NIV
https://www.bible.com/111/jhn.17.25-26.niv
John 17 Jesus prays for himself, he prays for his disciples, and he prays for future believers, he made a way for us. Jesus wants us to have the same love that his Father had for him. He wants us to see his Glory that his Father has given him. Verse 24 says that his Father loved him before the creation of the world.
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
This is truly the Lord’s prayer! Jesus begins praying about the glory of God…that God would glorify Jesus in the work He will do so Jesus will glorify God as a result. It’s not a bad prayer for us to pray as well. Next He prays for the disciples, reenforcing how dear they are to Him and asking God to protect them so that they will be one. It is interesting to consider how God’s protection is necessary for unity…mostly protection from the one who seeks to divide us. He also makes clear (most likely for the disciples benefit as they were listening to Him) that He is leaving the disciples in the world and the world will hate them in the same way it hates Jesus. It was necessary to prepare them for the persecution they would face and for them to remember it was part of God’s will and Jesus had prayed for them in regards to it. And lastly, Jesus prays for those who would believe because of the disciples witness (which includes us!). How encouraging it must have been for the apostles to hear that people would come to faith in Jesus because of their ministry! And His desire for us is that we would know and believe all that Jesus is and what He offers, that the world would know Jesus because of us, and that we would be one! Let us do all we can to make Jesus’ prayer for us effective!
There is so much here!
Jesus prays for Himself. We see some things about Jesus that the disciples may not have known:
– The Father has given Him authority over all life.
– It is Jesus who gives eternal life to all the Father has given him.
– He defines eternal life: this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
– Jesus has completed the work the Father gave Him to do.
– Jesus is ready to be glorified.
– Jesus was with the Father in glory before the world was (this made me think of what was going on before the creation of the earth!)
The Father gave Jesus the disciples.
They were Yours, You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word.
Jesus asks the Father to keep them.
He says that while He was in the world He kept them (except Judas to fulfill scripture).
He speaks these things to give them JOY fulfilled in themselves. (I was thinking about “joy within yourself” and how Jesus said in the previous chapter that they would have joy that no one can take from them. I believe this is the knowledge that Jesus is the Son of God, that He died for sin and rose again – the Gospel.)
He has given them God’s word.
God’s word is truth.
The word sanctifies.
Jesus prays for future believers.
How do future believers come to believe? Through the disciples preaching of His word!