Christ's Prayer For His Disciples.5

"I have given them your word, and the world has hated them, because they are no longer children of this dark and dying place, even as I am not. 
I do not ask that you remove them out of this world, 
but that you keep them safe from the evil one; 
for they are no more the children of darkness than I am. 
Make them holy by your truth, 
for your word is truth."

--Jesus

A bank manager once told me she can know in real time what, on any given day, activities a customer is engaged in by the use of their debit cards. With most of us sharing our souls on social media while the government is collecting massive amounts of data from our credit cards, internet use, cell phone and medical records, the definition of our lives is rapidly falling into the hands of others who deem themselves capable and empowered to judge the thoughts and intentions of our hearts.

The surest way to measure perception vs reality is to open your heart to the Truth.

Let's say you think you are a good money manager and generously give to help others. Is that true? How would you know it is true? In How To Manage Your Money, the late author Larry Burkett, suggests that if you really want to know what you spend your money on, look at your checkbook register. The previous six months of spending, if organized by category, is the most revealing indicator of our priorities, values and treasures...not our intentions.

But even if the facts support your claim, are you still true? The Apostle Paul admitted that even if he gave all his money to the poor but didn't have love, i.e., wasn't moved by the highest, deepest, and noblest of which God could make him capable, it meant nothing. The only thing that gives our actions true meaning is how closely they measure up to Jesus, The Word of God: the flesh & blood, observable meaning of God's Truth and Grace.

A very real and present danger is the presence in this world of the original "Identity Thief", the evil one, who relentlessly fills our minds with lies and confusion about our salvation, our birthright, our place near God's heart. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus pledged and gave the highest of which he was capable to make us merry children around His Father's throne!

But it is still our responsibility to guard our minds and hearts from the attacks. Let us make this a daily pledge: to desire not one thing we'd be ashamed of before God and His universe.That is a good place to start.

The Truth is out there ...may it be in us moving us closer and closer to our God-born potential for God-likeness!

Christ's Prayer For His Disciples.4

"While I was with them in the world, I kept them by the power that you gave me, watching over them, so that not one was lost, except for the son of perdition, that the scriptures might be fulfilled. Soon I will be returning to you; so I am requesting these things while I am still in the world, that they might experience and receive the full revelation of what is theirs."

--Jesus

Kept them (fill in the blank):

• strong
• focused
• safe
• fed
• growing
• serving
• moving
• potent
• child-like
• inspired
• free

A story of Will.  

Five feed dishes.  Five Horses.  Five sizes, ages, nutritional needs.  The younger, stronger finish first.  Ears go back.  Anger flares.  Attempts to chase the weaker away from their food...thwarted by a Higher Will.  Sad that they will not or cannot understand my Will to meet needs of which they are unaware.

The Son of Perdition is in the Will Not category.  Judas was not alone, however, in pinning back his ears when clashing with the Higher Will.  Dull disciples all who mistook the Master's moves to make them the men they were destined to be.  World-changing character does not come easy.  Perfecting Love has its price.  Jesus, our keeper, willingly paid it, continues to pay it, giving Himself eternally; desires that we should pay it too.

For those of us still in the cannot understand, keep obeying, trusting the Master to help us understand.  Trust in His keeping us moving, serving, strong, growing, getting better and better until the day of our revealing!

Christ's Prayer For His Disciples.3

"I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me; for they truly are yours. All who have believed in me are yours; and they do honor me. I am returning to you in heaven; but those that believe in me remain behind.

Father, keep them 
by the power of your name;
that they all may be one, 
as we are one."

--Jesus

Please Enjoy This Music Video:

 Middle Of Your Heart 
from For King & Country by clicking this link

perfection
love
kindness
justice
mercy
righteousness
joy
patience
hope
faith

we only know half of the whole (partially that, as in a mirror) of what we were made for...
until we are made complete in Him.

If not for the portion we do know, little would we be able to hope for the missing part.

"Two at least are needed for Oneness, and the greater the number of individuals  the greater, the lovelier, the richer, the diviner is the possible unity." --MacDonald

If our deepest longing for Eternal Life isn't focused on Oneness with our Creator, we do not yet know the Mission of the Master.

Can there be Oneness without

• agreement
• repentance
• confession
• love of truth and the will of God
• hunger for righteousness
• desire for harmony
• yearning for wholeness
• exposure of and casting away all that is unlovely or unworthy in us
• atonement
• reconciliation
• blessing
• hearts set on service
• purity

Father, may each day move us closer to Oneness with you as we put these things into practice now!

Christ's Prayer For His Disciples.2

"I have revealed you to those that you gave me out of the world.
They were yours,and you gave them to me,
and they have accepted your eternal words.
Now they too know that everything you have given me comes from you.
I have faithfully delivered to them the words that you gave me;
they have believed them,
and know in their hearts that I have come from God, sent by you on their behalf." 

--Jesus

A recap of my revelation:

• Death took my dad at the age of 31, I was 7. My mom, sister, brother and I started attending church for the first time in our family history. I responded to the invitation to Eternal Life at Vacation Bible School...pretty much every year.

He revealed his Fatherhood. 

•  At the age of 11 I came under conviction of sin while at a church camp; but didn't kneel down to confess until I went home alone in my bedroom and gave my heart to Him.

He revealed His redemption. 

•  At the age of 12 I had a car/bicycle accident that strengthened my conviction that God, my Father, was carefully watching over me and had plans for my welfare.

He revealed His protection.
 

• Some of my fondest memories are working at Spring Hill Camp under the mentor-ship of Enoch Olsen where I learned biblical principles of discipleship as well as the unconditional love and dedicated mission of the body of Christ.

He revealed His wisdom.

• While attending college at Trinity in Illinois, I was involved in evangelistic outreaches that started me attempting to overcome my natural inclination to fear and self-will.

He revealed His leadership.

• I met my future wife while attending a Wednesday Night Youth Group meeting where I took it upon myself to correct the leader over some doctrinal trifle. Neither one was impressed much...but (she still married me), after our wedding we moved to East Lansing where we initially fellowshipped with believers in a traditional church. We valued their friendship, but desired deeper revelation.

He revealed how to hunger for His righteousness.

• That hunger was intensified when we met followers of Jesus, in what became known as MSU Bible Study, because the greatest revelation comes through obedience. Through their lives they connected the Word of God with the power to overcome the ordinary struggles of life.

He revealed the Power of His Word.

• We dedicated ourselves to being obedient followers of Jesus: we learned to follow His example wherever we saw the Truth in it

• a quiver full of babies, eight sons in all!
• attempting to raise them in the discipline and instruction of the Lord
• managing my family
• being excellent in whatever we put our hands to
• reaching the world with the gospel of Christ
• serving others when the opportunity presented itself; including the desire to pastor

He revealed His Life in me!

• During a worship service at Teen Mania's summer camp, I was down on my knees unashamedly worshiping God amongst several hundred teenagers when a little girl, barely a teen herself, came up to me and touched me on the shoulder and said, "God wants you to know He loves you..." she turned and disappeared into the crowd and I never saw her again. It was a peculiar message, in word, not profound, but in Spirit it was a sacred pronouncement.

He revealed His care for me.

• My son Jesse pointed me to the writings of George MacDonald.

He revealed the Truth that is faith in Jesus.

Let MacDonald explain why Jesus' revelation of the Father was not merely information about God but the uniqueness of our individual lives to Him:

"Not only then has each man his individual relation to God, but each man has his peculiar relation to God. He is to God a peculiar being, made after his own fashion, and that of no one else; for when he is perfected he shall receive the new name which no one else can understand. 

Hence he can worship God as no man else can worship him,— can understand God as no man else can understand him.
This or that man may understand God more, may understand God better than he, but no other man can understand God as he understands him.
God give me grace to be humble before thee, my brother, that I drag not my simulacrum [impression, likeness] of thee before the judgment-seat of the unjust judge, but look up to thyself for what revelation of God thou and no one else canst give.
As the fir-tree lifts up itself with a far different need from the need of the palm-tree, so does each man stand before God, and lift up a different humanity to the common Father.

And for each God has a different response. With every man he has a secret—the secret of the new name. In every man there is a loneliness, an inner chamber of peculiar life into which God only can enter. I say not it is the innermost chamber—but a chamber into which no brother, nay, no sister can come.

From this it follows that there is a chamber also...a chamber in God himself, into which none can enter but the one, the individual, the peculiar man, out of which chamber that man has to bring revelation and strength for his brethren.

This is that for which He was made: to reveal the secret things of the Father."

(from The New Name, Unspoken Sermons I)

O may we continue to marvel at Thy grace and love for us in knowing you Jesus Lord of Life!

Christ's Prayer For His Disciples.1

"This is life eternal: that all might know the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I have glorified you on earth by completing the work that you entrusted to me. Now, Father, reveal my glory as I stand in your presence, the glory I have known with you since before the world began."

--Jesus

"This is what the LORD says: "Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, [nor the NSA boast of their data,] but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight," declares the LORD." --Jeremiah

Mankind's love affair with all things technological is being exposed for what it really is: a deep seated belief in our ability to control our own destiny....apart from God.  Far from a public outcry at Big Government snooping on our private affairs, a collective yawn sweeps across the land of the (rapidly deteriorating) "free" and home of the shamefully-indifferent-fading-memory-of-bravery.

It is a truth that what we worship in the object of our devotion is what we worship in ourselves.  What we extol in ourselves is not, typically, the Divine attributes of kindness, justice, and righteousness, but rather power and status.  How else to account for our fascination with the pomp and circumstance of Hollywood or Washington DC, the Super Bowl or Olympic champions, Wall Street or Bourbon Street, Silicon Valley or The Pentagon.

As the government collects more data on US citizens, presumably to keep us safe, we can only conjecture on what they could do with it.  The details of the IRS' decision to target certain political groups sends a chilling message of what people in power are capable of in the name of safety and "fairness".

In Buried Treasures, Rabbi Lapin makes a powerful point that goodness cannot be separated from God:  

"...the English word 'good' derives directly from the source of all good, which is God.   ...There is a compelling linguistic argument that originally humans understood that God and Kindness were not two separate ideas.  There is also a logical argument to be made that all attempts to define goodness or kindness without a framework of reference [in God] are doomed.  They were not even two separate words.

For as long as they were understood as a sort of merged reality, each dependent on the other for meaning, mankind was better off.  However, once a culture commences to define kindness with a political frame of reference instead of a religious one, it runs the danger of stepping on to the slippery slope that ultimately converts kindness to cruelty and tyranny."   

We know that the Perfect revelation of God cannot be separated from Jesus.  Let us press on to  completing the work He has entrusted to us: knowing Him! Let a fearless faith and commitment be strengthened in our knowing Eternal Life!  Be glorified in our knowing You Father!

"But you, LORD, 

are a shield around me, 

my glory, 

the One who lifts my head high.

I call out to the LORD, 

and he answers me from his holy mountain.

I lie down and sleep; 

I wake again, because the LORD sustains me.

I will not fear though tens of thousands 

assail me on every side." --David

Christ's Prayer For His Disciples

"Father, the hour is come. Glorify your Son, that he can bring glory to you in return. You have given him authority over every man and woman on earth, that he might impart eternal life to those you have given him."

--Jesus

What "authority", exactly, does Jesus have over every man and woman on earth?

To get a perspective it is helpful to remember the response to the Boston Marathon bombing

where the governing authorities  ordered every man, woman and child to "shelter-in-their-homes" for a day.  It is  a chilling reminder of how earthly rulers, even in the land of the "free" and home of the "brave", wield authority by coercion and brute force.

We know from eye witness accounts that Jesus had authority over physical things such as wind and waves; over disease such as blindness, leprosy, deafness; over spiritual and emotional paralysis such as demon possession and seizures; over moral decay such as money-grubbing in the temple.

Bruce Marchiano as Jesus,
 from the Matthew video series

But the real authority he wielded was the ability to rouse in people the desire for things eternal.  By using the consequences of bad decisions, sinful behavior, disease and nature's most fearsome threats, he demonstrated God's divine desire to draw our heart to His; to save us from our own destructive ways and embracing, in childlike gratitude, His perfect Will; of creating true hunger and thirst for a righteousness that He alone can satisfy.

To better understand this authority it is well to view Jesus' reaction to the response from certain individuals at His healing touch.  Consider the leper who refused to heed Jesus' command to refrain from broadcasting the healing miracle. 

Jesus got angry. 

"The Lord, who can read the heart, saw that [the miracle] had made in the leper no true response-that there was not awakened in him the faith Jesus desired to rouse: he had not drawn the soul of the man to his. The leper was jubilant in the removal of his pain and isolating uncleanness, in his deliverance from suffering and scorn; he was probably elated with the pride of having had a miracle wrought for him.

In a word, he was so full of himself that he did not think truly of his deliverer.

The Lord, I say, saw this, or something of this kind, and was not satisfied. He had wanted to give the man something so much better than a pure skin, and had only roused in him an unseemly delight in his own cleanness-unseemly, for it was such that he paid no heed to the Lord, but immediately disobeyed his positive command. The moral position the man took was that which displeased the Lord, made him angry.

Jesus saw in him 

•  positive and rampant self-will and disobedience, 
• an impertinent assurance and self-satisfaction. 
• Filled, not with pure delight, or the child-like merriment that might well burst forth, mingled with tears, at such deliverance; 
• filled, not with gratitude, but gratification, the keener that he had been so long an object of loathing to his people; 
• filled with arrogance because of the favor shown to him, of all men, by the great prophet, and swelling with boast of the same, he left the presence of the healer to thwart his will, and, 
• commanded to tell no man, at once 'began'-the frothy, volatile, talking soul-'to publish it much, and to blaze abroad the matter, insomuch that Jesus could no more openly enter into a city, but was without in desert places.' 

(from The Displeasure of Jesus, Unspoken Sermons III, MacDonald)

Do you believe he still wants to give to every man and woman "something so much better than pure skin", that is, Life Eternal?  Than be sure, his anger--the mark of his authority--the anger of a good Man, unyielding in its desire for purity, truth, humble gratitude, and loving obedience will burn until he awakens faith and rouses righteousness in the hearts of all mankind!

Lord Jesus, do your work in me today.  May my response to your healing touch result in greater faith in you and deeper love for you inside the circle of your consuming fire!

Disciples & Servants.12

"You call me master and teacher. If I, then, am willing to be your most humble servant, should not you be willing to serve one another as well? I have lived my life as an example before you. Imitate me, and do the same to others as I have done for you." 

--Jesus

It is truly remarkable how many people think they know What Jesus Would Do.  What car

he'd buy, what cause he'd promote, who he'd vote for.  And to prove it, they'll show you their colorful wrist band...

In fact, the Jesus Seminar, consisting of a group of "theologians" used colored beads to "vote" on biblical passages they thought were most like the true Jesus. Sadly, not only was Jesus not invited, but was reduced to a venerable but harmless "teacher" who did little but advocate for social justice ensuring all people would be treated "fairly".

Consider this statement by MacDonald:

How have we learned Christ? It ought to be a startling thought, that we may have learned him wrong. That must be far worse than not to have learned him at all: his place is occupied by a false Christ, hard to exorcise!

The point is, whether we have learned Christ as he taught himself, or as men have taught him who thought they understood, but did not understand him. Do we think we know him—with notions fleshly, after low, mean human fancies and explanations, or do we indeed know him—after the spirit, in our measure as God knows him?...Is only our brain full of things concerning him, or does he dwell himself in our hearts, a learnt, and ever being learnt lesson, the power of our life?

Whatever be your opinions on the greatest of all subjects,

• Is it well that the impression made upon your generation with regard to Christianity , should be that of your opinions, and not of something greater than opinion?

• Is Christianity capable of being represented by opinion, even the best?

• If it were, how many of us are such as God would choose to represent his thoughts and intents by our opinions concerning them?

• Who is there of his friends whom any thoughtful man would appoint to represent his thoughts to his fellows? 

 ...To hold a thing with the intellect, is not to believe it. A man's real belief is that which he lives by; and that which the man I mean lives by, is the love of God, and obedience to his law, so far as he has recognized it. ... he acts and lives in a measure like the true God. What a man believes, is the thing he does. This man would shrink with loathing from actions such as he thinks, or has been taught, God justified in doing; but like God, he loves and helps and saves.

What have you done this day because it was the will of Christ?

• Have you dismissed, once dismissed, an anxious thought for the morrow?

• Have you ministered to any needy soul or body, and kept your right hand from knowing what your left hand did?

• Have you begun to leave all and follow him?

• Did you set yourself to judge righteous judgment?

• Are you being wary of covetousness?

• Have you forgiven your enemy?

• Are you seeking the kingdom of God and his righteousness before all other things?

• Are you hungering and thirsting after righteousness?

• Have you given to some one that asked of you?

Tell me something that you have done, are doing, or are trying to do because Jesus told you. If you do nothing that he says, it is no wonder that you cannot trust in him, and are therefore driven to seek refuge in the atonement, as if something he had done, and not he himself in his doing were the atonement.

That is not as you understand it? What does it matter how you understand, or what you understand, so long as you are not of one mind with the Truth, so long as you and God are not at one, do not atone together? How should you understand? Knowing that you do not heed his word, why should I heed your explanation of it?

You do not his will, and so you cannot understand him; you do not know him, that is why you cannot trust in him. You think your common sense enough to let you know what he means? Your common sense ought to be enough to know itself unequal to the task. It is the heart of the child that alone can understand the Father. Would you have me think you guilty of the sin against the Holy Ghost—that you understand Jesus Christ and yet will not obey him? That were too dreadful. I believe you do not understand him. No man can do yet what he tells him aright—but are you trying?

Obedience is not perfection,

but trying. 

(from The Truth In Jesus, Unspoken Sermons II, by George MacDonald)