what Jesus prays for...

ok, so i don't know if i've never really read this before or if God's just opening my eyes to it in a new way...but i have been reading through the gospels - doing a little prep work for an art project we're going to work on as a team...and i read this prayer. its Jesus talking to His Father, in preparation for going to the cross, right before He goes to the garden...and all i can say is that if you have EVER doubted that Jesus loves YOU specifically and individually as well as the rest of His people - read this. its from John, and really look at what Jesus asks for - and see Jesus' heart in it...

 “I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they [my disciples] may have the full measure of my joy within them.  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.  My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it.  Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.  As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.  For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.

“My prayer is not for them [my disciples] alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their [my disciples’] message,  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.  I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
 “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.
 “Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me.  I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”

John 17:13-26

He doesnt reach out to you over and over again because He has to - He wants us to know the same love that God has for His Son...
who are we to say no to that?
:)


-ALIVE