02.10.12 “Jesus prayed for you”
Scripture Reading: John 17:13-19
13 “I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. 14 I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. 15 My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. 17 Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. 19 For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.
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Reflection Questions
In our final reading for this week we move into the seventeenth chapter of John’s Gospel which contains the prayer that Jesus offers in preparation for his arrest. The verses that we are reading today represent a portion of that prayer that Jesus offers on behalf of his first century disciples as well as all those who would eventually decide to become his followers. In these final moments, Jesus prayed for you.
- These words remind us of our challenge to follow Christ in the midst of an “out of control” world. “The world has hated them, for they are not of the world,” Jesus says. Instead of expecting the world to submit to God, Jesus asks for God to protect us from the world. How does this prayer and the hope that Jesus offers help us to engage and live in an “out of control” world?
Weekly Prayer
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at
a time, enjoying one moment at a time; accepting hardship as a pathway to peace; taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; trusting that You will make all things right if I surrender to Your will; so that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with You forever in the next. Amen.
Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.®. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.