God Encounters: Jesus’ Final Prayer
Ryan Binkley
5 minute read
This week is one of my favorite times of the year. Except for maybe Christmas, this is the time of year when people are most open to hearing the Gospel, and to accepting an invitation to church. The Passion Week (as it’s called) marks Jesus’ last week before His death on the cross. As you can imagine, Jesus knowing he had one final prayer to make before going to the cross, he had to make it count. Who wouldn’t?
This prayer captures Jesus’ heart for His disciples and His deep desire for them to experience God’s love and truth. In this prayer, you can find five key sections:
1. That We May Know the Father and the Son, and That We May Have Eternal Life
“Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said: ‘Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You, as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him. And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do. And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.’”
At the center of Jesus’ prayer is the desire for His disciples to know God intimately and to experience the gift of eternal life through faith. As you seek to know God personally and to grow in your faith, you can be assured of His everlasting relationship. The Bible is more clear on this than anything else. God wants a relationship with you that never ends.
2. That We May Be Kept Through The Name of the Father
“I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours. And all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them. Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are.”
Jesus knew that His disciples would face trials and temptations in this world. Therefore, He prayed that they would be kept safe and secure in the name of God. You too can find strength through Jesus in life’s deepest challenges.
3. That We May Have Joy and Be Sanctified by the Word of Truth
“But now I come to You, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.”
Jesus prayed that His disciples would experience the fullness of joy that comes from obeying God’s Word. He recognized that God’s truth has the power to transform from the inside out, leading to a deeper understanding of God’s love that can only be found through sanctification (which is a fancy theological word for the process by which you become righteous).
4. That We May Be Made Perfect in One So That the World Can Believe
“I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.”
Jesus prayed that His disciples would be unified and made perfect in one so that the world would see and believe in the love of God. As you seek to live in unity with our brothers and sisters in Christ, you become a powerful witness to the world of God’s love and grace. This kind of unity unfortunately is lacking severely in the modern church. It takes a true work of the Holy Spirit to bring together a fractured Church.
5. That We May Have the Love of the Father in Them (His Disciples)
“Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me. And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”
Finally, Jesus prayed that His disciples would experience the love of the Father in a deep and personal way. As you grow in your relationship with God, you too can experience His never-ending love and grace that sustains you through all of life’s joys and challenges.
As you reflect on Jesus’ final prayer this week, may you be encouraged to find a real joy that cannot be counterfeited. I pray you would feel emboldened to invite someone to church this weekend. You never know. They might be the ones to finally accept Jesus this week!