Jesus Prays For His Own

Jesus Prays For His Own
By Dudley Hall www.sclm.org

I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you gave given me. For they are yours...Holy Father, keep them in your name which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. John 17:9-11 (ESV)

Jesus prays for the disciples. He gets his prayers answered. What greater security could we have than to know that Jesus has asked the Father to keep us? What could harm us if the sovereign Father is in charge of keeping us?

Jesus demonstrated how he had kept the disciples during the time he was on the earth. He gave them the words that would replace the myths they had previously built their lives upon. The Father would be responsible from now on to make sure they had the words they would need to continue to live in his name.

This is not a case of Jesus asking the Father to do something he didn't want to do. After all, it was the Father who had chosen them and given them into the charge of Jesus. These were marked men. They had been marked off as belonging to him before they ever heard of Jesus. They had been given the grace to recognize Jesus as the Word of God. He would see to it that they would always have sufficient grace to hear and obey the continual words of God enabling them to fully know the privileges of being one with the Father and the Son.

This gives us some sense of the place of prayer in God's plan. Of course it was God's will to keep these that he had chosen and given to Jesus, but Jesus prays for them anyway. Prayer is not trying to change God's mind or to coerce him into doing our plan. It is activating his plan by partnering with him in accomplishing what he desires to do. A large part of eternal life is enjoying the partnership. God is doing something grand. He allows his sons to participate through prayer and proclamation. We pray and then proclaim, or we proclaim and then pray that the proclamation will be heard and understood. It is always his word that transforms. We do not embrace a rigid fatalism that assumes God will do whatever he wants without our participation. We GET TO play a role.

This also gives us clear understanding of what the Father's goal includes. We are kept by the word that reveals our union with him. We "see" how he has made it possible for us to know the Father just like the Son knows him. Knowing this takes all the fears of shame and failure away, and motivates us to replace our self-centered isolation with love for each other. Disciples who know their union with the Father will be a shinning light of hope for a world of orphaned-minded people looking for a father.

What a comfort to know that we are prayed for by Jesus. We can move with confidence into the purpose he designed before the world began.