Self-talk of the Savior

John 17, the longest recorded prayer of Jesus Christ in His earthly ministry, takes the reader into the very heart and mind—the inner thinking and intimacy the Son shared with His Father.

Verse 5: "And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was."

Verse 24: "Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world."

"What’s so notable is Christ doesn’t claim anything of His own. Instead, He says, 'The Father gave me. It’s the Father’s will. I’m doing the Father’s will.'

“So what you’re going to find in this prayer is the Lord Jesus Christ in communion with His Father about the plan the godhead had in eternity past and how they’ve worked it out through history and now they’re at that crucial moment; that lynchpin moment in which everything is going to hang," explains Richard Jordan. "He’s being obedient unto death; even the death of the Cross.

*****

“If you ever wanted to see the internal self-talk of the Savior . . . if you ever wanted to see someone go through the very depths of life, struggles, difficulties, injustice, betrayal, criticism, hatred—not deserving any of it. . . ‘They hated me without a cause,’ He said. He’s conscious of it, and yet able to do it with steadfastness, joy of heart and complete victory.

“When Paul says, ‘Let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus,' here’s the mind that was in Christ, and this is one of these rare occasions where you literally listen to Him express . . .

"One of the things you do when you pray is you open your heart up. One of the really valuable things about verbal prayer (audible) is that when you pray with one another (as husband and wife, or with other members of the ministry, etc.), you get to hear what’s on the heart of the other person.

“Sometime we are real conscious of that so we try to pray, not to God, but to one another. Grace allows you to be real and honest with people.

"The thing that makes you put up a mask and try to hide your failures is not grace. That’s the law. That’s a performance.

"When someone’s accepting you based on your performance, then you have to be sure your performance is acceptable. But when you have a relationship with someone, and this is a rare thing--when the Scripture talks about loving one another, and walking in love, this is the goal!

"It’s to be able to value and esteem a person the way God does and not based upon your evaluation or expectation, but based upon God’s statement about who they are and what the relationship is.

*****

“Theology just tramples this passage in John and it’s a crying shame. But this one writer, he titled a commentary book on John 17, ‘Take Off Your Shoes Because You’re On Holy Ground.’

"There’s really that kind of sense of sacredness about what’s going on here because the Lord literally opens Himself up to allow you to look into His heart and His innermost, intimate conversation with His Father.

“The Lord constantly was in a mode of prayer. It’s not strange that He would end His ministry with His apostles in that way. When you go back to, for example, Luke 3, in His baptism, it’s in the midst of praying that He goes and is baptized of John.

“When He selects the apostles in Luke 6, He’s up praying all night beforehand. When He’s on the Mount of Transfiguration, it’s an evening of prayer and then that. The very last words that came out of His mouth while He’s on the earth on the Cross was a prayer.

“Look at Psalm 31. The Lord constantly lived in communion with His Father but His prayers were intelligent. They were based, not upon emotion or just circumstantially, but they were communing with His Father about His Father’s will.”

(new article tomorrow)