Glory That You Gave Me

John 17:8,18,20-23 – For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me…As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world…“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

John 16:27 – No, the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.

Application:

• ·         Believers are to be characterized by humility and service, just as Christ was, and it is on them that God’s glory rests.
• ·         The emphasis on unity has an evangelistic aim.
• ·         We may long for heaven, but it is on earth that our work is done.
• ·         The unity of believers should have an effect on outsiders, to convince them of the mission of Christ. Jesus’ prayer is a rebuke of the groundless and often bitter divisions among believers.
• ·         Christ is explaining why the disciples can come directly to the Father in prayer: They have loved and trusted in Jesus, and in love God will hear their requests in Jesus’ name.

All Scripture verses taken from NIV