John 17:1-26

Jesus prays for the disciples and us and it is recorded for us in this chapter.  He has several requests to the Father concerning us, and those requests should be seen by us as priorities in our own lives.  Christ had accomplished what He came to do on earth and now He prays that the Father will keep them in many areas.

KEEP OUR IDENTITY WITH THE FATHER: Christ and the Father are one and we are in Christ and Christ is in us so we are in the Father.  Christ prays that we will be "kept" in that wonderful position.  It is not that Christ was concerned that the Father would not be able to maintain our position or that our position could in some other way be lost.  I believe that Christ was praying that the Father would assist us in maintaining our awareness of this blessed and unique relationship and help us to live in light of it.

KEEP OUR PURITY WITH JOY IN THE WORLD: Christ was leaving earth but He was very aware that His disciples would stay behind.  He asks the Father that we would be kept from the evil one while we remain in this world.  Christ had been tempted by Satan and knows the difficulty better than any of us do.  He prays that we, like Him, would be preserved during these trials.  This is possible when we find our joy completely in Him.  When we are full of the joy of the Lord the temptations of this world pale in comparison.

KEEP OUR UNITY WITH ONE ANOTHER: One of the greatest effects of sin is selfishness.  We all have the sinful tendency to look out for ourselves first of all and forget that we belong to the body of Christ and are to love and serve one another.  We are quick to divide and Satan wants nothing more than to see believers fighting one another instead of working together to promote the glory of God in the world.  Christ prays that that Father will help us to maintain our love for one another and help us to work along side of one another to make up for each others shortcomings that together we might live as a unified body for the glory of God and the advance of the kingdom.

KEEP OUR PROXIMITY WITH THE SON: Christ prays that we as believers will remember to abide in Him and and always recognize that we are in Him and He is in us.  This relationship and our awareness of it is vital to our being able to live a life of obedience before God.  It would be much harder for the disciples to experience this because they had been in His physical presence for so long.  But Jesus prays that they will recognize that He is still with them and that they are secure in Him.  We must appreciate the reality of this relationship even if it is hard for us to imagine.  This by definition is faith.  We don't see Him in us, and we don't feel like we are in Him but that is a spiritual truth that, if understood correctly, would revolutionize the way that we think and act.

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