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Jesus is Praying For You Today

Mar30

Prayer is good.

Praying for each other is good.

And I appreciate people who pray for me in the privacy of their own minds.

But I am taken to a whole new level of honored when someone prays for me out loud in my presence.  I am humbled.  I am touched someone would take time out of his or her life to talk to God on my behalf.  I feel valued when someone lets me eavesdrop on their intimate conversation with our Father about me.

These are the emotions I experience reading John 17.  In this chapter, Jesus is praying to God the Father for Himself, for His then-disciples, and for all believers to come.

We have every reason to assume that Jesus is praying in front of His disciples.  They are conversing in the last verse of John 16, and the first verse of John 17 reads, “After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed” (John 17:1).

Can you imagine listening to Jesus talk to God the Father?  Just to hear Jesus pour out His heart about Himself would have been moving enough (John 17:1-5).  But then He prays for the disciples in their presence (John 17:6-19).

Jesus spends the first three verses commending the disciples to the Father.  Jesus tells God the disciples have “obeyed your word” and “accepted [your words]” and believed “with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me” (John 17:6-8).  In other words, Jesus is vouching for the disciples.  JESUS.  Not just some random person.  Jesus Himself.  What an honor that must have been for the disciples to hear.

After Jesus verifies the disciples’ faith, He begins to pray for them (John 17:9;11;13;15;17;19).  Jesus asks the Father to protect the disciples while they remain in a world hostile to them and the Gospel they represent (John 17:14-15).  Jesus asks for protection from the evil one and for God to “sanctify [the disciples] by the truth” (John 17:17;19).

The footnote in my Bible defines sanctify as “set apart for sacred use or make holy”.  How honored must the disciples have felt for JESUS to ask the Lord to use THEM – a ragtag crew prone to doubt, density, and denial -for Kingdom purposes?

There is a curious verse in the middle of Jesus’ prayer for the disciples.  In verse 13 Jesus says “I am coming to you (God the Father) now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them.”

Jesus is explaining that his praying for the disciples in front of the disciples will yield the full measure of His joy within the disciples.

And I kind of know what He means.  When someone pours out a heartfelt prayer on my behalf, I feel valued. How much more so when the person praying is Jesus Himself?

Lucky for us, Jesus prays for us in the next section of the chapter (John 17:20-26).  Jesus prays for “those who will believe in me through [the disciples'] message” (John 17:20).  To be clear, that means every believer who has ever lived since that first batch of believers who walked and talked with Jesus Himself.  The discples’ message – the Gospel – is still being spread today.  And anyone who believes in Jesus on account of hearing that message is the subject of Jesus’ prayer.

So what does Jesus pray for us?  Unity.  Unity with each other, and unity with the Godhead.  Jesus also prays, “I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory…”  I think this is Jesus’ invitation for us to experience His glory during our earthly lives.  But what does that mean?  Maybe it means having spiritual eyes to see Him working around us.  Maybe it means working with Him to accomplish Kingdom objectives – like spreading the Gospel, seeing hearts changed by the Word, and serving others with Christlikeness so they will see Jesus in us.

Jesus finishes His prayer for us by asking that “the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them” (John 17:26).  I don’t think I can come up with two greater gifts than the Father’s love and Jesus Himself in me.

Jesus prayed for you.  And He still – currently, continuously – prays for you (Hebrews 7:25; Romans 8:34; 1 John 2:1).

Knowing this, may you have the full measure of His joy within you.

A Little Change of Perspective Goes a Long Way

Jan10
With the Lights Out

Image via Wikipedia

Hi, my name is Kelly, and I am a rebel.

I’m sure this is true of all people to some degree or another, but I feel particularly prone to resist authority.

I blame my older brother.  He modeled rebellion well for me, for which he spent the better part of the 90′s grounded.  I also blame alternative rock stars.  Kurt Cobain, in particular.  He was my idol for 3 or 4 years, and his anti-authority attitude rubbed off on me.  Lastly, I blame my friends at the time, who were a lot more courageous than me in bucking any and all authority, but nonetheless inspired me to resist rules and rulers in the depths of my heart.

Oh, and I guess I blame myself, too…  If I HAVE to…  Personal responsibility, blah, blah, blah…

All that to say that I had many years of training in refusing to submit to authority.  But I was usually too scared to outwardly resist, so I just kept those disgruntled feelings stewing inside of me while I towed the line.  Then, afterward, I’d sit around with my rebel friends and talk about how stupid those rules were and how stupid those authority figures were for enforcing those rules.

Enter God.

He came into my life when I was 16.  And all of a sudden, THE Authority Figure desired my joyful compliance.  I had to be rewired.  I had to learn that He was trustworthy.  I had to learn that obeying Him was actually in my best interest as well as His.  I had to learn to follow Someone else’s rules, not so I could get into Heaven, but as a sign that I really do love God (John 14:15,24; 1 John 5:3).

To be honest, I have to relearn these things a lot.  It’s hard for me to not slip into the mindset that God is a demanding authoritarian whom I must obey or else run the risk of severe consequences.  I often forget that He is love, subconsciously transforming Him into a harsh Disciplinarian whose chief concern is that I obey Him simply because He says so.

THIS IS NOT AN ACCURATE VIEW OF GOD!

It totally misses His heart for me.

At the core of who God is, He LOVES me (John 16:27).  And if we don’t understand God’s desire for our obedience in the context of His love for us, we turn Him into something He isn’t – a tyrannical authority figure.

We must leave this faulty perspective behind and intentionally adopt this new one – this correct one.

Because God loves us, He wants what is best for us.

God tells us what to do because He knows better than we do what is best for us.

If we obey Him, we experience what is best for us.  God is overjoyed that we trusted Him and loved Him enough to obey Him.

If we do not obey Him, God is grieved.  He is angry and sad that we, His precious children, are experiencing less than the best.  And he is sad that we did not trust Him or love Him enough to obey Him.

More concisely, when we disobey the Lord, He is first and foremost heartbroken.  Anger may be His secondary response, but immense sadness is His first emotion.  He is sad for us.  He is hurt by us and our lack of trust in Him.

What’s my point?

This slight change of perspective ought to help us resist temptation much more easily.

Our previous line of thinking was this: I shouldn’t do ______ because the Bible tells me not to or because God will be mad at me.

Our previous reaction was this: Frankly, who cares?  I want to do what I want to do.  He can be mad if He wants, but I’ve got to take care of me.

Animosity and isolation, then, rule our hearts, distancing us from God emotionally and making Him the “enemy”.

But with this shift of perspective, our thinking becomes this: I don’t want to do ________ because I don’t want to make God sad.

Love becomes our motivation.  We feel like we are on the same team as God.  We love Him; He loves us; and we’re in this crazy life together.

This same change of perspective can be applied to relationships with other authority figures in our lives.  Bosses, parents, pastors, spouses.  When they ask us to do something we don’t want to do, we can choose to be angry and do what we want to do anyway.  Or we can change our perspective to one of love – I don’t want to hurt this person by selfishly disobeying.  Perhaps this will make it easier for us to submit in these relationships as well.

**Insert your own disclaimer here that we shouldn’t always obey everything someone tells us to do just because they are in a position of authority over us.  I don’t want to take the time to write such a disclaimer because that should be obvious. :) **

Being motivated by love to resist temptation to buck authority… that sounds like Jesus to me.

 

It’s What We Do

Aug30

Most of the times that I find myself lacking, I ask, “Why am I not ______?”  I ask it as though I expect that “normal”, “good”, “healthy” people are ______ by nature, but, for some reason, I am not.

I search for an answer.  I read books.  I talk to counselors.  I ponder my childhood.  I analyze my personality.

On and on I go.  Sometimes I come up with some possible factors that may have contributed to my not being _______.  But I am learning that factors are not underlying, definitive reasons.

The truth is that whatever I am lacking comes down to one single reason each and every time.  I am broken.  I was born broken.

Psalm 51:5 says, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.”

By definition, my human nature lacks good and is full of bad.

One author puts it this way, “We are not sinners because we engage in sin; we sin because we are sinners, rebellious and sinful from birth” (Tan & Gregg).

In other words, sin is what we do.  It’s our m.o.  We can’t not sin.

With that in mind, I should not be at all surprised when I find myself lacking in an area.  Rather, my deficits should simply be a reminder of how much I need the Lord to enable me supernaturally to act right.

Titus 2 confirms that, left to our own devices, we have no idea how to “be worthy of respect, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in endurance…” (Titus 2:2).  We have to be taught these things.  Women have to be trained “to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands” (Titus 2:4-5).

Trained to love my husband and children?!  Of all the things on that list, shouldn’t loving my own adorable flesh and blood come naturally?

Let me just free me up and say, “NO!”  I am naturally SELFISH, not naturally LOVING.  And I am not alone!  All of you are naturally selfish too!  That is glorious news, isn’t it?  I breathe a huge sigh of relief to know that, while it’s true that I am lacking a patient, loving demeanor, it is also true that every other person on the planet also naturally lacks that!

Except.

Except for the person who does not live according to his nature.

It is possible, by the very power of Jesus Christ, and only by that power, for you and I to STOP living according to our selfish, sinful human nature and to START living “in accordance with the Spirit” (Romans 8:5).

And just what is that supposed to mean?

Galatians 5:22 tells us that those who live by the Spirit are characterized by “love, joy peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”

Can we live this way on our own? No.

Can we resolve to live this way? Not for very long.

Can we tell God we want to live this way all the time, but we can’t do it without His supernatural enabling? Sure, but He already knows.

Can we ask Him to help us? Yes.

Can we be sure He will help us? 1 John 5:14-15 tells us, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.  And if we know that he hears us–whatever we ask–we know that we have what we asked of him.”

Desiring to stop living according to our sin nature and to start living according to the Spirit is desiring God’s will for ourselves.  He will hear us.  He will help us.  We just have to ask.