Jesus Revealed Part 16 - It's In The NameSample

Jesus' High Priestly Prayer Part 4  

Thoughts on the Passage

Jesus closes off this prayer with two things – a prayer for you and me, and a call to unity.

First, Jesus prays for the many men and women who will come to faith because of these eleven men. He prays for you and me. He prays that we will join together and create a unified team so that the world sees and believes.

Second, Jesus prays to the Father that all the followers of Jesus will come together with the same love for the Father and love for Jesus that these followers have. This unity looks like this:

1. There is a unity in submission. Jesus in the Father and we in Jesus. Our focus as a church is to be one under the headship of Jesus and overarching protection of the Father. This requires a humility that does not focus on us, our passion, our calling, our perspectives…. It focuses on Jesus. 

2. There is a unity of focus - Jesus. There will never be enough glory given to Jesus, so do not worry whether we are giving Him more than other believers – none of us are giving enough! Let’s give Him all the honor and glory that we can, and let us do it together.

3. There is a unity on calling upon the Name of the Father. Jesus taught it – and continues to teach it. As we walk in the understanding and power of His name, we learn the awesome love of God to us. It should not surprise us that a true understanding of His name is an understanding of His heart of love. We speak His Name over our world – it is to see His love released over them. It is to have His heart for our world and our desire to see His love revealed. 

We often close our prayers in the Name of Jesus – because Jesus instructed us to do that. Here Jesus is doing the same in the Name of the Father. He is finishing this prayer by speaking the Name of the Father. We see that the Name of the Father releases understanding and a commitment to love like the Father. That is a great way to finish prayers – to ask the Father to help us be like Jesus and to be like Himself.

Application

Do you struggle with walking in unity with the children of God? Walking in unity makes us different from the world around us and makes the world see God through us. There are lots of things that separate us – including sin at times – but let’s choose wherever possible to be people who walk together.

Ending our prayers – in His name. It is a powerful way to end a prayer. His Name describes who our Father is – and we ask Him to answer us because of His commitment to being our loving and faithful Father.

Time to Pray

Father, I start by thanking Jesus for His prayer for me. In the final hours before His death, He chose to pray for me. What a powerful blessing. His prayer for me was to walk as He walked – in submission to You, in unity with You and Your plans, and in unity with one another. That is my prayer for me today. May I walk like that. May I challenge brothers and sisters to think like this. May we never allow sin to break this. May we never have our focus pulled away from this. Help me cry out to you for my brothers and sisters to keep our focus here. May we walk together as Jesus and You walked. And I ask this in Your great Name. I ask this in the Name of the Father who loves us beyond measure. And I ask in Jesus’ name, Amen.