We read John 17 in Wednesday's Bible study. In this Easter season, it was an interesting look into the heart of Christ as he was only hours from His death. The 17th Chapter is a prayer in which Jesus essentially prayers for Himself, His Disciples, and for us who believe that He is the Son of God who was sent for our salvation.
In the first five verses many of the Bibles labeled it "Jesus Prays for Himself". As we look at the verses we see that Jesus does pray for God to glorify Him but only so He can glorify God and He asks to be glorified in the presence of God as He was in glory before He was sent into the world. It is apparent that when Jesus prayed for Himself, it was not for His wants and needs but for His Father's glory.
Verse 4 struck me as well: "I glorified you on earth by finishing the work you sent me to do." I find this interesting that He is speaking in past tense and this is before His crucifixion. What work is He talking about? The answer is in verses 2 & 3... "since you have given him (Jesus) authority over all the people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." The work completed was that His disciples know that He was sent by God for the salvation of all who believe. He considered his work complete at this time and when He prayed for God's will, not His in the Garden of Gethsemane, I believe that God carried Him through the crucifixion, death and resurrection. Jesus surrendered to the will of His Father and God completed the work of salvation for us.
As we continued to study Chapter 17, we see Christ praying for the Discples in verses 6 - 19 and for future believers (us) in verses 20-26. The prayer is essentially for His disciples to know the truth (believe) and by their belief, be glorified in Christ and united through Him with His Father, and by their glory, others come to know and believe and receive the same glory. What Christ really prays for is for us to become equal with Him in glory and unification with God. He wants us to have all that He has and to be with Him in heaven. We do see a stark separation between those who believe (those given to Him by God) and the world (non-believers) and He makes it clear that He is praying for believers to receive that glory and oneness with His Father.
As I try to summarize this beautiful prayer, I am struck by the clarity Jesus had for His mission and purpose... that He make known to us that He was sent by God so that we may know God and be saved. It is that specific. Over and over He mentions that He was sent, that He was given the disciples and us, and that we know, believe, and receive the Truth, united and filled with the love of Christ.
Discover and Proclaim the Truth of The Bible which is: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life." (John 3:16 NRSV). Jesus came to humanity to proclaim and give evidence to that love and He has commanded us to do the same. We, who believe, must not merely be followers, but we must be proclaimers of the Gospel Message and we can only do that by being filled with the love of God.
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