REFUELING SPIRITUAL RHYTHMS: PRAYER

God wants to continue to refuel your spirit with hope, joy, and peace. When we are in step with God’s rhythm, then we will engage our lives with more strength and courage.  In our series Refueling Spiritual Rhythms, we turn to a powerful discipline that moves us closer to finding this rhythm in our lives.  In the sermon Prayer we go to John 17:10-21.  Jesus is praying for his disciples and for every believer.  Jesus is about to endure the agony of the Garden of Gethsemane, the betrayal of a disciple, and death on the cross, but he is lifting his disciples and all of us in prayer!  Jesus prays for God’s power to protect us, but at times it seems to be doing a poor job!  Our problem with prayer is that we want it to offer us miracles rather than maturity, self-empowerment rather than sacrifice, or response rather than relationship.  As we read this prayer, the relationship between Father and Son is the superpower. We also see how we can be a part of this superpower within our lives.  This is why Jesus is praying for us!  As you read John 17:10-21, we pray that amid the uncertainty, frailty, and difficulty of life, you will experience the superpower of this relationship lifting you into joy and eternal hope.  

John 17:10-21:

All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. ¹¹ I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. ¹² While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled. ¹³ “I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. ¹⁴ I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. ¹⁵ My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. ¹⁶ They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. ¹⁷ Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. ¹⁸ As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. ¹⁹ For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified. ²⁰ “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, ²¹ that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.