The Best Prayer Partner!

Jesus Prays for All Believers

20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one,Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. 24 “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am,and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. 25 “Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. 26 I have made you[e] known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”
In this chapter we see Jesus' prayer life.  All of chapter says is a prayer Jesus makes to His Father in heaven.  First, he prays for God to glorify him.  Jesus brought His Father glory with all he did on earth, and now he was going glorify him with his death and resurrection. Then he would return to the glory he had before with His Father before the world began.  Next, he prays for his disciples that they would be protected from the world, and specifically the evil one.  He gave them the words they needed to know from the Father and though they would still be in the world, they would be protected by the Spirit which would keep them in true faith.  Finally, we see the prayer for those who would believe in Him through the disciples.  
What I notice most of all is Jesus' concern for the world and that people in the world would come to faith.  They would come to know Jesus and the Father through the disciples whom Jesus sent into the world for that purpose.  Also notice Jesus' desire for people to be with He in the Father in heaven.  He wants to share with all people what heaven is like.  He had experienced this glory with God before He was sent to earth, and now he was going back to be with the Father forever.  But he wants as many people to be there with them.  This would be the mission of the disciples.  To go into all the world and make discples of all nations.  This mission started with the discples and continues with us today. 
So if Jesus prayed for his disciples and those who would believe through them, I believe he would pray in the same way for us today.  In fact the bible tells us that Jesus intercedes for us at the right hand of Father.  That's right Jesus is praying for you right now.  Pretty good prayer partner huh?  So as a Christ follower, God wants you to use to continue the mission he started in His Son and continued through Jesus' first disciples.  You and I are still in the world, but we are not without protection.  The Holy Spirit has set us apart not to stay out of the world but to go into the world and bring God glory.
Where do you think God is calling to be a witness to His glory in the world?  Where is it challenging for you to maintain a Christian witness in the world you live in.  Most likely that is a place where God wants you to be.  After all the light shines brightest in the darkness!      

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