Being With Jesus:
John 17:1-5
After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.”
Let me listen to the content of your prayers and I will describe your theological grasp of God as well as the level of your spiritual maturity. Not that I want to throw a wet blanket over your access to the throne room of your Heavenly Father nor make you second guess the kinds of things you are praying for.
Obviously, we have been invited to “ask for what we wish” in prayer (John 15:7), to “approach God’s throne of grace with confidence” (Hebrews 4:16) and to freely “pour out your hearts to God, for he is our refuge.” (Psalm 62:8) Nothing, no one nor any teaching should ever cause us to shrink back from the privilege of openly and authentically connecting with our loving Heavenly Father in prayer.
Nevertheless, the kind of prayers we consistently pray reveals the kind of Christian we are. So if you are concerned about becoming more like Christ in your spiritual journey—as we all should be—then the content of your prayers over time must turn toward the kind of focus Jesus had every time he prayed.
In this prayer recorded in John 17—what we call Jesus’ “high priestly prayer”—the last recorded prayer he offered right before his arrest, trial and crucifixion, we see an intense, passionate yet calm, centering supplication being lifted to God. We get a glimpse of that which was most important to Jesus—his priorities—of how clear he was about the divine plan—his submission to God’s will—and of what he understood about his Father’s character—his theology.
As important as anything in this important prayer was Jesus’ passion for the glory of God. He uniquely understood the glory that emanated from the eternal God, for he had shared in that unfettered glory from the beginning of time (“the glory I had with you before the world began”, John 17:5). He was fully committed to his own life—and death—reflecting that glory to the world (“Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you”, John 17:1) He had perfectly and completely testified to the glory of God through his thirty-three years as an earthly man (“I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do,” John 17:4). And now Jesus rightly expected that the Father would restore all the past and future glory of the of eternally existent Son, second person of the Holy Trinity, to him as he submitted, body soul and spirit, to the cross for the sin of the world (“Now, Father, give me back the glory that I had with you before the world was created.” John 17:5, CEV).
Yes, what Jesus prayed revealed who Jesus was, how he believed and what was most important to him. His final prayer tells us that he believed there was no greater theology that the glory of God. It also shows us that there was no more important focus in life than the glory of God. And it reminds us that there was no greater commitment, no greater expenditure of energy, no greater sacrifice for Jesus than to use his one and only earthly life for the glory of God alone.
What do your prayers reveal about you? Your anxiety about God’s competence to care for the details of your life or your desire for the temporal things of this world or your passion for quick fixes, pain avoidance, comfort and prosperity? Over the course of the next few days, pay attention to the content of your prayers to get an honest assessment of what they reveal about your theology and your spiritual maturity. Like me, you will probably realize that your trust, obedience and understanding need to go much deeper in God.
What if you and I began to shift the focus of our prayers (and our lives) to the glory of God alone? Truly, there is no greater theme in all creation than God’s glory. And if we will begin to passionately invest our praying and our living toward that end, we will not only fulfill the purpose for which we were created, we will be well on the way to sharing in the glory of the One who rightly deserves it all.
At the end of the day, may it be said of us that the glory of God alone was our unceasing doxology.
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“To live and work for the glory of God cannot remain an idea about which we think once in a while. It must become an interior, unceasing doxology.” (Henri Nouwen)
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