One: Praying With Jesus That the World May BelieveSample

The other day I heard the story of an older man in the YMCA locker room telling anyone who would listen about all that God had done for him.

As the other members got changed, they politely listened to this thankful Christian, making known God’s love.

He moved to America from India many years ago, worked hard, started a family, saw his four children grow up and graduate, start families, and grow in their love for God. He had much gratitude in his heart.

When Jesus prayed for us in John 17, he pledged never to stop making God’s love known to us, that he would tirelessly work so that the whole world would know God just like He does.

This is a remarkable prayer, one that prompts gratitude but also some doubt.

When I look around the world, I see much that causes despair and fear: war, disease, poverty, grief still abound like they did when Jesus prayed with his disciples in the garden.

It’s in those sorrowful conditions, and the grateful ones, that Jesus works to fulfill his prayer in our life.

We must trust him that the prayer he shared is one he will work to answer.

Throughout the Gospels, we see the creative and care-full ways Jesus works to make God known to the world, healing and forgiving, confronting and challenging, teaching and leading.

Jesus is prayerfully pledging himself never to stop making God’s love known to us, to a war-weary world, that this love might permeate our spirit, mind, and body.

Christ works through those of us who still believe in him, in and through our suffering, by his Holy Spirit.

What are God’s good things for you that you can make known to others in your life, your YMCA, your church, your community, that they too might believe?

What is the suffering you are enduring, the hard times you are going through, that you want God’s oneness to be real in your life, to have his love transform your heart?

Pray with me:

“Jesus, transform my heart so that I keep my eyes on you, that I might glorify your name through my unity with other Christians, that I would make God known through my life, that we might all believe and know your love for us.”

[by Pastor Tim Hallman with YMCA of Greater Fort Wayne ]