Isaiah 43:10-21 (NIV)  

¹⁰ “You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord, “and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he.  Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me.  ¹¹ I, even I, am the Lord, and apart from me there is no savior.  ¹² I have revealed and saved and proclaimed—I, and not some foreign god among you.  You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord, “that I am God.  ¹³ Yes, and from ancient days I am he.  No one can deliver out of my hand.  When I act, who can reverse it?”

¹⁴ This is what the Lord says—your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “For your sake I will send to Babylon and bring down as fugitives all the Babylonians, in the ships in which they took pride.  ¹⁵ I am the Lord, your Holy One, Israel’s Creator, your King.”

¹⁶ This is what the Lord says—he who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters,
¹⁷ who drew out the chariots and horses, the army and reinforcements together, and they lay there, never to rise again, extinguished, snuffed out like a wick: 

¹⁸ “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.  ¹⁹ See, I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?  I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.  ²⁰ The wild animals honor me, the jackals and the owls, because I provide water in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland, to give drink to my people, my chosen, ²¹ the people I formed for myself that they may proclaim my praise.

John 17:6-24 (NIV)

⁶ “I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world.  They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word.  ⁷ Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you.  ⁸ For I gave them the words you gave me and they have accepted them.  They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me.  ⁹ I pray for them.  I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours.  ¹⁰ 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 that 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, so 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.  ²² I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: ²³ I in them and you in me.  May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

²⁴ “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.

We continue to explore the prayers of Jesus to His Father on the Mount of Olives before He was put on trial before the Sanhedrin.

John 17:20  I pray also for those who will believe in me…

Jesus, I think we can say, was obsessed.  This is His last free time on earth, and He spends it praying to the Father for His obsession.  You, me, us.  Those who will follow Him.  Jesus sanctified Himself, separated Himself and put everything into making the disciples great.

Jesus says, “I want my disciples to be where I am, to stand before the throne.  I’m going to give them my glory, I want them to be loved, and I want you, Father, to love them exactly the way you love me.  I want them to see my glory, and I want them to have the same greatness to stand where I get to stand.  Amazing.

The Judea/Christian understanding of God who is very personal; He is a God who thinks and feels and rejoices and gets frustrated and acts in human time, while also being transcendent over the universe.  He doesn’t need the world or anything in it.  I say all this makes me understand this is the God we’re talking about who gives us glory.

He is a personal God, giving us His glory, eternal, omnipotent, Christ the King who invites us to come be a part of His Kingdom and family.

God will place the Holy Spirit in us and then began the task of folding us into His mission.  He will incorporate us into His work and business, to heal the brokenness of both the universi and humanity.

We will not lose ourselves in eternity but become who we are destined to become.

Ephesians 3:18 (NLT) And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love is.

God says, “I want them to see my glory, I want them to have my glory!  I want them to become radiant sons and daughters of your Father, my brother and sister.  I want them to cast their crowns before you, lost in love and wonder and praise.

The Word of God is mentioned repeatedly in the prayer.  The disciples received a body of truth and now are relating their truth to others.

The first principle is truth defines and creates Christians.  The second principle, the truth recreates Christians.

The truth defines and creates a follower of Jesus.  How do we know we are a Christian?  Nothing earthly will ever satisfy ourselves.

C. S. Lewis said, “I’m just as empty as I’ve always been.”  It stands to reason that if there is a hollowness in humans, then nothing on earth will ever be able to fill it.  This means we are created for another world.  To know that we are followers of Jesus has a bearing on eternity, and the here and now.

There is nothing on earth that can satisfy our deepest longing.  We long to see God.  The leaves of life are rustling with the rumor that we will – and we won’t be satisfied until we do.  ~Max Lucado

If you’ve ever seen a follower of Jesus, been near them when they are praying, it is obvious that God is real to them.  This is not a test to determine if one is a Christian.

Jesus says those who have accepted the truth about Him, those are His followers.  “I gave them the truth and they accepted it.  They know I am from you (praying to the Father), and you sent me.”  A person is a Christian if they are in a certain relationship to the truth about Jesus.

A basic test.  It’s the truth.  If we don’t have the truth as a basic minimum for being a follower is Jesus, then we’re going to have to live with all kinds of insecurities.

We have to make being a Christian about believing the truth about Jesus.

What truth?  Before the New Testament was written down the truth was given to the disciples, memorized, passed down, preached to the next generations after the disciples.

Two truths in the Apostle’s Creed: 1) They believe I’m from you.  2) They also believe you sent me.

1)      Jesus is not just a man, but He is God, from God.  The day Jesus was born and the day He died are the two days on which humanity pivots.  Nothing else in history comes close to the two events of Jesus life in His coming and His death.

2)      God the Father sent Jesus.  What that implies is that Jesus came here on a mission.  That Jesus sanctified Himself, set Himself apart in order to make His followers holy.  He came to do what we need done and cannot do ourselves.

Jesus died in our place, what we deserved on the Cross.  He paid off the debts of our sins.  This is where truth matters.  Our attitude towards the truth is a much more secure test than anything in our behavior.

Jesus gives His life away so we could be accepted by God.  How we relate to the truth makes us believe or not.

The truth recreates the Christian.  Truth is the way God protects us and recreates us into holy people.

The power to follow Jesus comes with the truth and it is active.

1 Corinthians 6:18  Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.

God gets His glory into us by taking the truth and putting it in front of us, having the Holy Spirit help us understand, making it real for us.

Ephesians 1:18  I pray that God will open your minds to see his truth.  Then you will know the hope that he has chosen us to have.  You will know that the blessings God has promised his holy people are rich and glorious.

When we become anxious, we are forgetting the truth about God’s power, we need to be mentored by the Holy Spirit and meditate on God’s truth through His Word.  The truth will begin to shape our lives.  This week read, meditate and pray that your heart and mind will be open to the truth in your life.  God bless; the truth will set you free.