John 17:6-19 (NRSV)
Read John 17:6-19 on biblegateway.com
Verse 6"I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Verse 7Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; Verse 8for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. Verse 9I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. Verse 10All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them.
Verse 11And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. Verse 12While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. Verse 13But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. Verse 14I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. Verse 15I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. Verse 16They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.
Verse 17Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. Verse 18As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. Verse 19And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.
Devotion
One day my little grand-daughter and I were sharing the piano bench. The littlest member of our family had grown tired of cartoons and had yielded to grandpa's suggestion that they make some music at the piano downstairs. We found some common ground in choice of music because both she and I had been to bible camp. Sixty-five years later some of those songs were the same. So there we were...Grandpa plunking away with one finger and a third grader doing far better with the instrument of her voice. "I will not be afraid! I will not be afraid! I will look upward and travel onward and not be afraid." I don't think she saw the tear in my eye. The drama of the moment was too much for my emotions. A little girl who has had five open heart surgeries in her brief life with, perhaps, more to come...singing her heart out: "He says He will be with me. He says He will be with me. He goes before me and is beside me, so I'm not afraid." There, in that moment, was the answer to all of our prayers for that little girl.
I should be so brave! With the disciples of long ago, none other than the Lord Jesus, has prayed us for. We have reason for great courage and confidence in the power of the Holy Spirit to go with us.
Prayer
Lord, grant us courage to move ahead in faith and in your vision for our world. Amen.