Scripture Reading: John 17:1-11

Jesus Prays for His Disciples and for All Believers

As I write this devotion, I am away from home, away from my family and away from my home church, IPC Zürich. Living and working in France for two weeks, I have realized how important it is to be bound in prayer. Prayer is a powerful weapon and prayer is a key to Christian life. Prayer is the main communication between God and believers. Meditation and prayer are important elements of the Christian life. Often we hear the word “meditation” and think it is related to Eastern religions. It is not, as we are called to meditate upon God’s Word and to pray.

I like the prayerful example of Jesus when he lived on earth. He prayed on various occasions; he even gave us examples of how we should pray, even up to the last minute. In today’s text, he prayed for his disciples, with whom he spent the last 3 years of his life.

The Father and the Son are “givers” and their mutual giving constitutes the grace which those who belong to Jesus have inherited and in which they are now seen to live. Once again, precisely in the action of “giving,” the Father and Son are joined as one. Their mutual giving reveals once again the oneness expressed in John's prevalent “just as” theology: As the Father does, so does the Son. As the Father is a giver, so the Son imitates the Father in his giving. I believe our heavenly Father expects us to demonstrate “oneness” in our faith and not dwell on our differences.
Knowing That We Belong
Significant then are those things that are “given” by the Son and the Father. Most importantly we hear that the followers of Jesus know they belong to him. To know that one belongs to Jesus is to know this as integral to the essential nature and purpose of the Father and the Son.
Knowing the Father’s Name
The second thing that has been given, Jesus says, is the knowledge of God’s “name.” (17:6, 11-12) If these ones whom the Father has given to Jesus now belong to Jesus, then what these believers have been given is to “know the name,” the character of the One who is the source of the eternal life which they have come to know in Jesus. God’s name stands for all that God is and has done, most importantly through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
Knowing the Word
Thirdly, we hear that these followers have been given the “Word.” (v 14) They are protected in the “name” precisely because they have been given the “Word.”

Being Sent into the World
Because of the Father’s name, because of who the Father is and what the Father has “given” in love to the Son, we can know ourselves as made holy and kept holy in the truth of the Word. (17:17) The Father's Word has become flesh. Guarded and sustained in the Word of God, we can know ourselves as a disciple community, constituted in the power of Christ's death and resurrection and in the promise of his presence in the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Counsellor and Comforter.
Prayer: Father God, you didn’t leave us as orphans in a foreign world. We thank you for your Word, the Bible, and the Holy Spirit who guards and protects us. Give us boldness to stand up for your Word. In your name, we pray. Amen.