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Day 2 -Jesus’ Prayer for Us!

Scripture reading for June 30: John 17: 20-25“”I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word, that they may all be one, just 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 have sent Me. The glory that You have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as We are One, I in them and You in Me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that You sent Me and loved them even as You loved Me. Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, may be with Me where I am, to see My glory that You have given me because You loved Me before the foundation of the world.””

Not only did Jesus give His disciples a pattern or model of how to pray, He prayed for them using that pattern as recorded by the apostle John in chapter 17 of his Gospel. Earlier in this prayer and over and over, Jesus addressed God as “Father” as He instructed His followers. We are to pray directly to the Father and can come boldly before Him because of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice for our sins. (John 16:23-24)

As Jesus taught His disciples to pray for God’s kingdom to come and His will to be done, so Jesus prayed in this passage for God’s will to make us all one with Him and the Son. God’s purpose was that the world would believe that God sent Jesus and that He loved them enough to send His Son to die on their behalf. Those who would believe and unite in God’s family would experience God’s love and it would flow through them to those in the world.

Jesus had prayed earlier that God would keep His followers in the world from the evil one and that none of them would be lost, except Judas, the son of destruction. (John 17:12) His request was to make them complete and filled with joy eternally, even though the world would hate them. They would be set apart by the truth of God’s Word and Son. Jesus not only prayed for His immediate disciples, but for all who would come to believe in Him through their witness and message. His plan was that all who believed would be with Him where He was and behold His glory forever and ever! Truly, His is the power and glory forever and ever! Amen!