Page 9 - Living Light Spring 2024

Monday March 4 - Brought out and sent back! “...remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world...” John 17:11
I recently heard of a young drug addict in Central America who was led to Christ and underwent successful rehabilitation – so much so that he’s preparing to be a missionary in a neighbouring country. Brought out of ‘the world’, he’s now sent back into it to proclaim Jesus as Saviour and liberator.
Jesus’ disciples have been given to him by God out of the world (v 6), and now he prays for them because he’s sending them back into it. They’ve been called from the world, taught the ways of a different world – God’s Kingdom – and now are to be returned into the world to challenge it with Kingdom ways and values. They need God’s help, so Jesus prays for them.
The world! It’s God’s good creation, which he loves, but which Jesus came to save from its ungodly ways (John 3:16). Ill-disposed towards God, it was now the source of opposition to Jesus: ‘He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him’ (John 1:10 NRSV).
It was this ‘good world gone wrong’ that Jesus was sent to save through his ministry, death and resurrection. Now his disciples were to ‘take up their crosses’ (Matthew 16:24) and the example and teaching of Jesus, following him into a world of opposition. That’s why Jesus prayed for them, and why he prays for us today.
Father, help us to pray and serve, that your Kingdom may come on earth as in heaven. Amen.
Tuesday March 5 - Cleanse me O Lord!
“Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name...” John 17:11
A Bible translator friend pulls me up short in his letters, for he always asks prayer for ‘the Lord’s protection in the spiritual battle’. We must understand that the opposition or indifference we encounter as Christians has a spiritual basis.
Jesus has affirmed that his disciples belonged to God and they believed in Jesus and his teaching as God’s Word (v 8). He’s said that he protected them while with them, although one, Judas, hardened his heart as the written Word foretold (v 12; see John 13:18 and Psalm 41:9). He’s confirmed that he’s now returning to his Father in heaven (v 11). So now Jesus prays twice for their protection.
He asks that God protects them from the evil one (v 15), bearing in mind that ‘the devil had already prompted Judas... to betray him’ (John 13:2). He’d previously taught them, in what we now call The Lord’s Prayer, the crucial things to pray for in day-to-day life, one of which is that God ‘deliver us from evil’ – or ‘deliver us from the evil one’, as the meaning may equally be (Matthew 6:13). Jesus reiterates this central need as he prays for his disciples.
And the means of protection is the power of the Name of God – the great unchangeable “I AM”, the Eternal One, the Ever-Present – to whom Kingdom, power and glory belong. And that great protective name is now given to Jesus (v 11).
Our Father, deliver us from the evil one, for yours is the Kingdom, the power and the glory. Amen.
PRAYER FOR TODAY
PRAYER FOR TODAY
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