Your words…

I pray not only for disciples here, but also for those who believe in Me through their message. May they all be one, as You Father, are in Me and I in You. May they also be one in Us, so the world may believe You sent Me. I have given them the glory You have given Me. May they be one as We are one. I am in them and You are in Me. May they be made completely one, so the world may know that You have sent Me and have loved them as You have loved Me.  John 17:20-23

My words…

I praise and thank You, Holy Spirit, for securing the words of John’s prayer inside his mind so he could recall them without issue fifty or sixty years after they passed by the lips of my Savior. The words were spoken from the stifling confines of an upper room in Jerusalem and ascended along an invisible, hallowed current to the glittering throne room of God. A prayer from You, Jesus, a Son weighed with dread, to a waiting, watchful Father. In the final hours before the anguish of Gethsemane, the shame of arrest, the injurious trial, and the horror of crucifixion, You thought of Your future followers. Of me! If I didn’t know anything else about You, I would still surrender my heart and mind to You based on this one act of prayer.

In the coming weeks, I will humbly remember Your death and joyfully celebrate Your resurrection with other believers. It’s times like these I treasure being one with other disciples in my city, my country, and the globe. My worship doesn’t look or sound like traditional African worship, or solemn cathedral liturgies. But because we all live in the midst of Your ever-present glory, I am confident our expressions of adoration and devotion will fuse and ascend along that invisible, hallowed current to the glittering throne room where Jesus, our King, sits at his Father’s right hand. I pray we as believers delight You in our constant efforts to become and remain one. How wonderful it would be for us to be an answer to Your prayer!