Overheard: Jesus Praying for You

John 17 is sometimes called the high priestly prayer. Jesus prays for himself, then for the eleven, and then, in verse 20, for a third group. He prays not only for these, he says, but for those who will believe in him through their message. The disciples' message became the New Testament. Anyone who has come to faith through it is the person Jesus was praying for that night.

That deserves a moment. You are not reading a historical prayer about other people. You are overhearing Jesus pray for you, hours before his arrest, with your name unknown to the disciples but known to him. What does he ask? He asks that all of them may be one, as he and the Father are one. He asks that they be in him and in the Father, so that the world may believe. He asks that they see his glory. He asks that the love the Father has for him may be in them, and that he himself may be in them.

The requests are relational through and through. He does not pray that his future followers will be comfortable, or successful, or free from trouble. He prays that they will be united to him and to each other, so closely that the world sees something of God in it. And he prays that his love will be in them. The whole prayer ends on that word.

The one idea to carry from this chapter is that you have an intercessor who has been praying for you since before you existed and has not stopped. Scripture says elsewhere that he lives to intercede for those who come to God through him. This prayer is the first recorded instance of a ministry that continues now. Whatever you are facing today, Jesus has already spoken to the Father about you.

The turn toward life is a change of posture. Many Christians pray as though the whole weight of getting God's attention rests on them. It does not. You are joining a conversation already in progress, in which the Son has been speaking for you all along. Pray, then, with confidence. Pray for the unity he prayed for, in your church and among believers you disagree with. And pray that his love may be in you, since that is what he asked for, and the Father does not refuse the Son.