The Everyday Prayer

Re:Verse passage – John 17:20-26 (day seven)

“I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word.” John 17:20

Jesus was praying for YOU. These were Jesus’ last free minutes on this earth. In less than twelve hours, He would be on the cross, and He spent this time praying for you. Before you read on any further, go back and read  all of John 17 with you and the cross in mind.

Isn’t that amazing?  As you read over those words, they penetrate your soul. The selflessness. The care. The love. Have you ever heard anyone pray for you like that? These are prayers you would hope to hear from a parent, spouse, or very dear friend. Doesn’t it feel good to be so loved? It also challenges you: do your prayers show this type of love? Are your prayers for those you love this selfless? Do you reciprocate that same love in your prayers to Him?

Re:Verse passage – John 17:20-26 (day six)

The High Priestly prayer in John 17 is the longest recorded prayer of Jesus in the Bible and is glorious. His heart is heavy and full as he thinks about what is ahead, along with a deep affection for the men entrusted in his care. It is here that Jesus prays. With the cross ahead of him, he first prays for glory. He then prays for his disciples as they carry his story in a hostile world. Lastly, with a much longer gaze, he prays for his church.

It shouldn’t surprise us that Jesus would cast a vision for his church before she was even born. His very incarnation embodied a vision of what humanity should be. It only makes sense as he ignited a movement of the new creation that he would look beyond the twelve to his church, the fruit of their faithful witness.

And Jesus’ vision for us is glorious; that we would share in his new creation glory with such clarity and unity that the world can’t help but see him.

Now that’s vision.

Re:Verse passage – John 17:20-26 (day five) ”I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.”

I believe one of our deepest needs is unity. To feel and sense cooperation and agreement. Fractured relationships are unsettling and disruptive to our hearts and minds. The only solution (source) for unity (perfect unity) is God’s love. Unity, when authentic and grounded in God’s love, is a picture of the Gospel. Jesus claims in His Priestly Prayer, that the unity He desires is a picture of God’s Love- sending the Son to repair and reconcile the human race. (Unity seeks to restore and reconcile relationships for the Glory of God). Unity is  also a picture of God’s Love seen in our relationships with each other. Kindness. Forgiveness. Accountability. Faithfulness. Only God’s love gives us the hope and chance for unity that will glorify God. When God’s love is the source and catalyst for unity, people will be able to sense and see God’s holiness, grace, and love on display. They will see and experience the gospel at work (in us and through us).

Re:Verse passage – John 17:20-26 (day four)

“The glory which You have given Me, I have given to them…”

Christ has given us glory. But…I don’t often feel very glorious, do you? Would you describe your day-to-day life as glorious? The majority of our lives are spent doing pretty non-glorious things. Just getting through the day, doing what needs to get done, worrying about what tomorrow will bring, figuring things out.   

But, much of Jesus’ life on earth was filled in the same way as ours. He got hungry, he got tired, he got up, went to work, went home. He had to tend to his body as it aged, he knew what exhaustion felt like. Yet he was still full of glory. He was still full of the glory that is found in his intimate relationship with the Father. Because that’s who he is – he is the Son of the living God, created in glory. So no matter what else was happening to him on any given day, that glory was the most true thing about him.  

When he came and lived his life on earth, he gave that glory to us. He brought us into that fold, that beautiful glory that he enjoys with the Father, we now enjoy with him and the Father, through the Spirit. It’s not glory in spite of the mundane parts of life, it’s glory that reaches into those ordinary parts of life and makes them beautiful, makes them redeemed. Now, even on our worst day, on our most non-glorious day, when we’ve accepted Christ as our savior, that glory that we share with him is the most true thing about us too.

It is through living in this reality that we show the world who our God is.

Re:Verse passage – John 17:20-26 (day three)

“I have made your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

There’s a deeper source of loneliness and despondency than one’s conclusion that God is unknown, and that is one’s conclusion that God cannot be known. To remain permanently sealed off from even the possibility that inquiry and exploration could lead to an experience of God’s existence would be the kind of life in which atheism would make sense. In such a reality, belief in God or religious inclination would make no practical difference to a human being whatsoever. In his prayer, Jesus reaches through and beyond such a chasm between divine and human. He’s getting a message out from heaven that God is here. All things are now possible.

Re:Verse passage – John 17:20-26 (day two)

That they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. Vs. 21

Jesus’ words in this prayer are not a condition for salvation, but a desire for a blessing beyond imagining. His call for unity is not a call for conformity. We don’t see him saying he wants everyone to look alike, talk alike, and be the same. Paul would later remind us that we are all made uniquely, and that each has a part to play in the symphony of the Lord. Jesus wants us to experience the beauty of unity that can only come from union with the Lord.  Then, all those differences that we see in each other fade in comparison to the light that shines from our being in step with Jesus. He speaks so beautifully about wanting this for all of us. If he had such a desire for this unity, shouldn’t we?

Re:Verse passage – Ephesians 3:14-21 (day seven)

“to Him be the glory in the church” Ephesians 3:21a

After a beautiful dialogue on how and what happens in us when we pray, Paul concludes this section with an even more beautiful doxology. The focus of the dialogue was on the “inner man” so one might think that this doxology would follow suit. Yet, the calling is actually for us to give Him glory together in the church. Prayer and worship can be immensely personal, but the external expression of what happens internally is magnified on the corporate level.

John Piper says it like this, “The inner essence of worship is to know God truly and then respond from the heart to that knowledge by valuing God, treasuring God, prizing God, enjoying God, being satisfied with God above all earthly things.”

Sunday morning is our “in the church” moment, but is not the only time we worship in the week. Sunday morning is an opportunity for us to respond together in joyful adoration to the God in Whom we have found complete satisfaction. Though our personal prayers and journeys may be different, we can all lift our eyes and voices together as one to say, “God is good. To Him be the glory!”

Re:Verse passage – Ephesians 3:14-21 (day six)

So please don’t lose heart…Ephesians 3:13

Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. 1 John 4:18

To know and experience the love of God is to live and love without fear. Fear, or losing heart, leads to self-preservation. Love leads to freely giving of ourselves to others. Fear dehumanizes. Love restores our humanity. Fear leads to trusting our instincts. Love leads to trusting Jesus.

That is how Paul was praying. The only way they could not lose heart was to know and experience the love of Jesus more deeply, and it is there, and only there that they can know the fullness of God (all that he purposed them to be).