Key Verse: "My prayer is not for them
alone. I pray also for those who will believe in Me through their message, that
all of them may be One, Father, just as You are in Me and I am in You.
John 17:20-21
If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus
Christ, if you testify to His death and resurrection on your behalf, for your
sins, if you have accepted His gift of forgiveness for those sins and have
asked Him to be the Lord of your life, then this prayer was meant for you too.
Jesus looked down through the ages and prayed for you, before you were born. Before you had done anything to try to earn or turn away from His love, Jesus
prayed for you.
You are His because the disciples would not
keep quiet. You are His because they spread the good news of what Christ had
done. You are His because many that the disciples told believed the message and
passed it along to others. You are His because believers, down through the
centuries continued to spread this good news despite persecution, opposition
and loss of life. You are his despite human sins and failures within the Church
that threatened to forget the message.
Some remnant always remembers! You are His because the good news cannot
be silenced. God's truth must move forward setting free from sin all who will
believe.
In this prayer, He has included us in the One.
He and His father are One. He and His disciples are One with Him and His
Father. We are included in the Oneness of God when we accept Him into our
lives. The Holy Spirit that Jesus promised is ours as well, doing for us what
Jesus promised He would do for His disciples. It reveals truth and glues us to
Him, to the disciples and to one another.
Satan has tried many schemes to rip the One
apart. Denominations, rifts and heresies are just some of the flaming arrows
that he has used to destroy what God has created, but the true Church, the true
body of believers is still One in Him. Our continued sins and divisiveness
gives the world plenty of opportunity to point out our flaws, and much of what
is said is valid. Too often, we do still fight against the Oneness for our own
agendas and privileges, but as we submit to Him, and in humility submit to one
another, what He desires for us becomes more important than our own agendas.
As John the Baptist said way back at the
beginning, "He must increase and I must decrease." (John 3:30) If
we love Him, we will obey Him. His prayer for us is: "I in them and You in
Me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that You sent
Me and have loved them even as You have loved Me." (John 17:23) The more
we strive to be one the more we bring Him glory. The more we bring Him glory
the more His glory will shine on us in turn. Remember, He said that "by
this, all will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another."
(John 13:35) That is a picture of oneness, not division.
The world has plenty of conflict. It does not
want to be a part of one more group full of strife, gossip and opinions. Those
in the world are looking for love and acceptance. The world cannot give itself
what it needs, but Christ can. He needs us, acting in oneness, to bring Him to
them. Christ's love is what the world needs. May we make Him irresistibly
attractive to those who need Him.
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