I know where you can get a Christmas sweater! Some how, I resisted the temptation to buy it myself. 🙂

Someone’s Praying 

John 17 

Have you ever heard someone pray and you knew immediately that this person and their prayer was something special? I heard a woman pray several years ago at our Wednesday prayer service and I was mesmerized. She was intimately acquainted with God. That fact was crystal clear from the moment she opened her mouth. There was nothing routine about this prayer. She was passionate, intense, humble and worshipful.  

In this chapter Jesus is praying to the Father, out loud and with great detail. It is a wonder! It gives us a picture into the intercessory prayer ministry of Jesus. Other passages tell us that Jesus is going to the wilderness to pray, that He prayed all night or in others sections, Jesus teaches us how to pray. But here in chapter 17, we see the actual content of His prayer. It is Jesus praying. There is not another portion of scripture like it. 

We know what Jesus’ purpose and ministry was on earth; to die. Mark 10.45 says, For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many. His purpose was to serve and give His life. 

Have you ever thought about what Jesus is doing now? What is His primary ministry now, while in heaven?  

• Romans 8:34, Christ Jesus is He who died, yes rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God WHO ALSO INTERCEDES FOR US. 
• And Hebrews 9:25, therefore, He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.   

In John 17, Jesus is praying as if He is in the future, back in heaven again, with the father. He is praying in the present tense about events of the future. He prays as if His work on earth has been completed. He is now glorified and interceding on behalf of the disciples and then praying for all believers to come in the future.  

When I read John 17 this morning, I read it as if Jesus is in heaven right now praying this prayer for me today on December 21, 2018. Why? Because He is. WOW!!!! 

Jesus thank you for praying for me today and praying I do not ask You, Father to take Larry out of the world, but to keep him from the evil one”. Thank you, Jesus, for praying sanctify Larry in your truth, Thy word is Truth. Father, as You sent Me into the world, I also sent Larry into the world that the world may know that You sent Me and that I love Larry. For Larry’s sake I sanctify Myself that Larry also may be sanctified in truth. 

O righteous Father, although the world has not known You, yet I have known Larry, and he knows that You sent Me; and I have made Your name known to Larry, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in Larry, and I in Larry. 

Thank you, Jesus, for dying for me. You fulfilled Your mission and ministry on earth.  And now, thank you for your continuing ministry of continually interceding for me and for us now and always. I am safe, I am protected, I am in your will because (and only because) You always live to intercede for me. Amen. 

NOTE: I will be taking a few weeks off of posting during the Christmas season. My blog will return on January 7. God bless you and have a blessed Christmas season! Larry