John 17 - Prayer

“1After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed: "Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. 2For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. 3Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. 4I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. 5And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.”

Throughout this chapter, Jesus prays for Himself, the disciples, and all believers everywhere and through that, in my opinion, He gives us an example for prayer. First, He prayed for Himself. Many times, I feel selfish praying for me, but that doesn’t come from God. I need prayers just as everyone else does, I can’t make it through the day without God, yet sometimes I have a stigma about prayer for myself. I am happy to say that that no longer applies, praise the Lord! If Jesus, the Son of God, the world’s only Perfect Person, prays to God for Himself, then I can too.

Next, lets look at that prayer. Jesus prayed that He would be glorified, not for Himself, but to further glorify the Father (1). He presented the task that He was given by God (2,3), and told God that the task was finished (4), and that He was ready to move forward to the next step in God’s plan (5). All through the Bible and these verses too, Jesus constantly displays that He is there to trust and follow God, no matter where it may lead, that His sole purpose is to glorify our Heavenly Father by completing the task given to Him. This should be our prayer and focus too.

Finally, Jesus then prays for His disciples, His “inner circle” and then for all the other believers (which I feel includes us too). It was not only the prayers (which were powerful and should be read by all), but the progression that struck a chord with me: Himself, His closest friends, the rest of the believers. This shows me how to move in my prayers. If I do not pray for myself to stay on track with God, then I’m in no position to help my friends and family; therefore, I MUST be in alignment with God’s will to bring Him glory by completing the task given to me. Then, I can be of support to my family and friends, which are empowered to support the rest of the world. Essentially, if everyone aligns themselves with God, then we are more empowered as small groups to follow Him, then as small groups we align ourselves, we are more empowered to reach the world. If we do it in any other order, we can damage the whole plan, so we must start with ourselves FIRST, core group NEXT, then to the world.