JESUS PRAYED FOR ME... AND YOU

What a blessing it is to see Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God, praying for me. I believe there is some pretty heavy things to take from his prayer.

First, his distinction between believers who the Lord has “given” to him and those who will believe in him by the message of those who were "given" to him certainly sounds like evidence for limited atonement. But that’s neither here nor there, you can research the 5 points of Calvinism yourself.

A verse that was incredible to me was this, where Jesus prays for his disciples:
“I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world.” John 17:14
Is that not staggering? That to Christ, believers should not be any more of the world than he was? It should floor us what he’s claiming here. We are responsible for being a pure presence on earth while Christ is absent. There is no excuse for our inadequacies.

Next, he prays for other believers:
“...I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of us may be one,...” John 17:20-21
Christ pleads with the father for unity. In just three verses he asks for it four times. This certainly makes me believe it is important. What does unity look like? How are we to act? Perhaps my previous entry may elaborate more on seeking unity in the body of Christ. Also, check out Acts 2:42-47.

Finally, I want to point out how desperately Jesus wants people to know the Father:
“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.” John 17:24
After all, Christ is not praying this when everyone loves him. He is praying that they would know him on the very night they arrest him- and he knew it was coming, but he still prayed!

What if we had the same intensity that Christ has? Our flesh is not an excuse to be of the world, we know that now. And we also know that we should deeply desire to be unified under the banner of Christ with the whole world. (What an insane vision! Was Jesus crazy?)

We also must desperately want people to come to know him. And that means abusive fathers, alcoholic mothers, drug addicts, porn stars, complacent believers, lying preachers, careless strangers, ruthless drivers, angry store clerks.... the list goes on and on.



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