Jesus Asked To Be One In Glory With All Who Believe

What Did Jesus Do?

“I do not ask for these only,
but also for those who will believe in me through their word.
John 17.20

Jesus had prayed to the Father many times, and many times in his prayers he had asked on behalf of his disciples. But, as the hour of his crucifixion drew near, the Lord had his eye on a broad and distant people far beyond the limit of those who had followed him during his two-plus years of ministry—the Son interceded with the Father on behalf of all those who would ever come to believe.

The Son had not been sent merely to impact the lives of a few who were fortunate enough to be living in First Century Palestine. No, Jesus came for the sake of all believers in all places and at all times. He had prayed for his disciples, his “called out ones” (see WDJD for 6/15/11); now he would pray for the ones whom his disciples would be commissioned to go and serve (Matthew 28.19-20). Even as it was the Lord's greatest joy that he was one with the Father (John 10.30), and his deepest desire was that his disciples would be one in, through, and with him (John 17.11), he would not settle for anything less than that all believers be one, in order that the world would believe he had been sent by the Father (John 17.21-23).

One, as it turns out, is the farthest thing from the “loneliest number.” In Christ, all become one to the 1x1000000.....power (11000000...)! Far from loneliness, this is close and limitless fellowship, now and forever. And, though in this world those in fellowship with the Son, and with one another in and through him, will face tribulation, there is something “out of this world” they will come to know and experience through him who overcame the world—glory.

For the prayer of the Son was not for mere fellowship for his followers, but for such intimate fellowship with him and the Father that they too would be partakers of the very glory of God which has existed since before the foundations of the world were laid (John 17.24). While it is the world's practice to jealously guard love, it is the Father's heart that the Son should make the his love known, and available to all who believe in the only true God, and in Jesus Christ whom he sent.

Those who glory most in the things of the world are typically those who find it hardest to believe, to accept that the Father loves the world with a completely different and surpassing love in and through the Son. It is the task of those who are one with Jesus to make this love known, not just by telling others about it, but much more by showering it upon others, so that the world may know the love with which the Father loves the Son, and that in fact the Son himself dwells within his disciples to this day, and forever, which is nothing short of glory.

S.D.G.

Jim
www.jimwilkenministries.org
Marion, NC
PS 37.4