JESUS TAUGHT US HOW TO HAVE A CLOSE RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD [JOHN 17:11-19]
“Keep them in Your name Father” (John 17:11).
How privileged we are to have a glimpse into the prayer life of Jesus. In His prayer, He taught us what it is like to have a close relationship with God. Isn’t it amazing that, even in His times of intimate communion with His Father, Jesus prays for us? It is not enough for Jesus to pray that we would be protected in this world. Rather, He wants us to know the same intimacy with the Father that He has. It’s almost as if Jesus wanted there to be no distinction between the love He experienced from God and the love available to us. How could the Father resist the prayers of His beloved Son? Surely God will give in what Jesus constantly prays for! It is ours!
Jesus prayed that the Father would keep and protect us by His name. In Jesus’ day, a name meant more than just what someone was called. A name represented an entire person – their presence, their personality, everything about them. So when Jesus prayed that the Father would keep us in His name, He was not just praying for some abstract power to protect us. He was asking the Father to keep us in Him. He was asking that the Creator of the universe would keep us safe.
If all this seems too good to be true, there is even more. Jesus consecrated Himself on our behalf. In so doing, he dedicated Himself to be our Redeemer and Savior for all time. As Jesus continues to intercede for us and to live in us by the power of His Holy Spirit, we can be kept from the evil one at all times.
Jesus’ prayers to His Father reveal those things that are most dear to His heart. It is awesome to think that we are the object of His concerns and that we are the ones most dear to Him. How blessed we are! There is no one whom we can trust more than Jesus. Why not give Him our lives and everything we are? He has given His all for us. Let us continue to die to ourselves so that His perfect divinity can flow in us and through us into the world.
Jakarta, 4 June 2014
A Christian Pilgrim
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