John 15-17; Proverbs 24:23-34
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In the last verse of John chapter 16, Jesus says, “In this world
you will have trouble.” There it
is. Fact—life will not always be
perfect; you will have trouble.
“But take heart! I have
overcome the world.”
This is followed by one of the coolest chapters in all the gospels
in my opinion. It is the longest
recorded prayer of Jesus. Jesus
prays for Himself, He prays for His disciples, and He prays for all believers. All the gospels talk about Jesus
praying often, and a lot of the time Jesus would go by Himself to pray; but
here we get to hear His words to the Father. We can model our own prayers after His. We can also be strengthened with
encouragement from His prayer.
When Jesus prayed for the disciples He prayed, “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.” First of all, there
is power in the name of Jesus! And
we should be praying for the protection for those we do life with as well as
for us all to be united.
I find this part of His prayer interesting – He says, “My prayer
is not that you take them out of the world … “ Remember that Jesus said that in this world we’d have
trouble, but He doesn’t pray we’d be taken from the world and all the
trouble. The rest of that part of
His prayer is this – “but that you protect them from the evil one.” We should be praying for ourselves, our
families, our life groups, our pastors and church leaders, etc that God would
protect from the evil one.
“I pray also for those who will believe” – that’s you and me! The whole Bible is for you and me, but
there is something very special in reading Jesus’ specific prayer to the Father
for us. And this is what He prays
for, that all believers would be one heart and mind together with Jesus and God
… that Jesus would be in us as the Father was in Jesus. And that we would be “brought to
complete unity to let the world know” that God sent Jesus and has loved us as
the Father loved the Son.
Finally, Jesus also prayed for believers to be with Him where He is and
to see His glory. I’m praying for
that today as well – that we be where He is and that we’d see His glory.
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