Day 39 – How he prayed for you

John 17

When Jesus had said these things, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, “Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, so that your Son may also glorify you. Just as you gave him authority over all of humanity, so he will give eternal life to all that you have given him. This is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one you sent, Jesus Christ. I have glorified you on the earth, accomplishing the work you have given me to do. Now, Father, glorify me with yourself with the glory I had with you before the world existed.

“I revealed your name to the people you have given me out of the world. They were yours, and you have given them to me. They have kept your word. Now they know that all you have given me is from you, for the words you have given me I have given to them, they received them, and knew for sure that I came from you. They have believed that you sent me. I pray for them. I don’t pray for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. All things that are mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep and look after them in your name which you have given me, that they may be one, just as we are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name. I have kept those you have given me. None of them is lost except the son of destruction, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled.

But now I am coming to you, and I say these things while I am in the world so that they may have my source of joy to fill themselves completely. I have given them your word, and the world hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I am not asking for you to take them from the world, but for you to keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.

“I am not praying just for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, Father, just as you are in me and I in you, that they also may be one in us, so that the world may believe that you sent me. The glory which you have given me, I have given to them, so that they may be one, just as we are one, I in them, and you in me, that they may be made perfect in oneness, so the world may know that you sent me and loved them, just as you loved me. Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, so they may see my glory which you have given me, for you loved me before the foundation of the world. Righteous Father, the world has not known you, but I have always known you; and these now know that you sent me. I made your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the perfect love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I may be in them.”

For reflection

From what Jesus prayed for you and the church, what do you think we need and should keep asking for most urgently? What difference would it make for us to receive this, and how might God need to change something in you to help make this happen?