John 17 Devotions by Stephen Taylor

John 17:17

“Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.” 

 

I looked up the biblical definition of “sanctify,” and this is what it said:

 

1: to set apart to a sacred purpose or to religious use: consecrate.

2: to free from sin: purify

 

So, one of the things Jesus is telling us here is that God’s Word is truth and that this truth can set us free from sin and help us to be set apart for His glory and to be His! This is why reading and applying the Word of God is so important! There is freedom, power, hope, encouragement, direction, and strength in those pages. But if we’re only reading them and not applying them, then that’s like owning a gun with no bullets. It looks nice, but it’s not very useful. We must not only read the entire Word of God but apply it to our lives through the leading, help, and power of the Holy Spirit.

 

Jesus said that the Spirit of Truth will lead us into all truth, but if we’re not willing to follow, how can He lead us? We don’t have to perform to be saved, but we do have to believe and obey. Belief and obedience go hand in hand. You must obey the command to repent and believe in Him to be saved, so to me, you can’t really do one without the other. If I don’t believe you, I’m not going to obey you, and if I don’t obey you, can I really say I believe you?

 

One more thing: Jesus says He is the truth, so we could read this as being sanctified through Christ and the Word of God. Both the Word and the Word!

 

John 14:6 - Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

 

John 16:13 – “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; He will speak only what He hears, and He will tell you what is yet to come.”

 

John 14:23-23 Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.”

 

God bless! I love you all, but the Lord’s eternal love for His people is so very much more! Glory, honor, and praise now and forever to Papa God, Jesus Christ our Redeemer, and the Holy Spirit who leads us into all truth if we are willing to follow!

 

 

John 17:20-23

"My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me."

Why have we divided what Christ prayed so earnestly to be united? We have sectioned up His Bride, but that was not His intention or desire. His prayer here shows His desire and request that all believers would be one, not one in a worldly sense but one as He and the Father are one! That, my friends, is a unity not of this world but one that we as His Bride should be desiring more and more. And yes, this is to the Church's benefit that we be one in Him, but there is also a purpose for it and a blessing to the world around us.

Christ points to our unity together in Him as a way of showing the world who He is and that God has sent Him to save us. If our unity is supposed to say that, then what does our division say? The lost and unbelieving world is looking for answers, and when they look to the Body of Christ, what do they see? Hands and feet working in unison for the glory of God? Not really. They see more individuals with agendas than they do a group of untied believers here to do the will of God. This is not to bash anyone, but this I just an observation and one I think we would do well to correct.

What if the Body crossed the denominational lines in love and started functioning as Christ intended? The hands helping the feet, the feet helping the eyes, and so on. Each one of us has a specific gifting from God; we need Him and each other to accomplish what He has sent us here to do.

Christ prayed for you and me, but His recorded prayer here wasn't for a flourishing ministry, a great outreach program, in-depth and ground-breaking sermon series, but He prayed that we would be one in Him as He and the Father are one. It was so important to Him that He not only prayed it but had it recorded for us to read so many years later. This prayer He prayed came right before He went to the garden and eventually on to the cross! He knew that it would be an issue in the future and found it imperative to pray it for all to read. Can we answer the call and reunite what was never supposed to be divided? It starts with 1!

Ephesians 4:4-7- There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.

God bless! I love you all, but His love longs for unity in the body, not division! Glory, honor, and praise now and forever to Papa God, Jesus Christ our King, and the Holy Spirit!

 

John 17:24

“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.”

The depth and width of the Father’s love is beyond our understanding! Christ says that the Father loved Him before the creation of the world, but what does this teach us? It teaches us that the Father’s love is not bound by time as we know it. We can’t truly fathom a time when the world was yet to exist. It just doesn’t compute in our minds, and yet Christ says the Father’s love was present and real! Our God and His love are not confined by time as we know it, but He is above and beyond it.

It also teaches us that the Father’s love isn’t based upon us as people, for if God’s love was present before people existed, then the people don’t have bearing on His love! He loves because that’s who He is, not because of who we are. It’s not the goodness of Stephen that garners the Father’s love, but it is the goodness and faithfulness of the Father that makes this love available and powerful.

That being said, God does have a special place in His heart for the people who belong to Christ, but let us make no mistake that it was the Father’s love for the lost that paved the way for Christ to come. It’s amazing to me that this God who has no limits or boundaries would confine Himself to a human body so that He may be tortured and murdered to save a wretch like me. The Gospel is the greatest love story; there is none more beautiful than it!

John 3:16,17- For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.

God bless! I love you all, but my love is a mere shadow compared to the brilliance and fullness of His love! Glory, honor, and praise now and forever to Papa God, Jesus Christ our King, and the Holy Spirit!