Live to Love Scripture Encouragement

John 17:11-12 “I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are. While I was with them, I was keeping them in Your name which You have given Me; and I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled.”
While Jesus was in this world, He had a job to do, namely, first, to manifest the name of the Father to those the Father gave Him and keep them in His name. This is revealed in vs. 6. Jesus said, “I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world.” In vs. 12, we see second that Jesus also kept them in His name. He guarded them—that is, all that the Father gave Him.
In these two verses, Jesus, knowing that He is leaving this world to go to the Father, has a request of the Father. He asks the Father to keep His disciples in His name so they may be one even as He and the Father are one. I have suggested that the name that Jesus manifested is love. I think this is confirmed when we notice that whatever the name is, it is what unifies the Father and the Son and will also unify the disciples. Love is the perfect bond of unity according to Paul (Col. 3:14). Therefore I conclude that the name that has been manifested and in which we are kept is the love of the Father and the Son for His own. Now let’s connect the dot of the glory of God that the Father and Son had before the foundation of the world. That glory is their love! Listen to what Jesus says only moments after these words. It is recorded in John 17:22-24. “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me. Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.” What is that glory He wants us to see? The love of the Father for the Son.
So today, let us be encouraged by these words. Our Father keeps us in His love, the same love He has for His own Son, Jesus. As we live to love with Jesus today, we do so because of the grace of God bestowed upon us in giving us His Son. Jesus in us loves those He puts in our paths. We simply love with Him.

Acknowledgment: Music from “Carried by the Father” by Eric Terlizzi. www.ericterlizzi.com

John 17:10 “And all things that are Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine; and I am glorified in them.”
The Father has glorified His Son, Jesus, by giving Him everything that belongs to Him. It’s the another way of saying that Jesus is the “heir of all things” as stated in Heb. 1:2. If anything belongs to the Father, then it belongs to Jesus, and if anything belongs to Jesus, it belongs to the Father. What a sweeping, glorious declaration.
What are the “all things” to which Jesus referred? As I’ve said before, context is king. It governs the meaning of words. If we look back a couple of verses, we read this: “For the words which You gave Me I have given to them; and they received them and truly understood that I came forth from You, and they believed that You sent Me. I ask on their behalf; I do not ask on behalf of the world, but of those whom You have given Me; for they are Yours; and all things that are Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine; and I am glorified in them.”
What did Jesus have in mind when He said, “all things”? It seems clear that He was thinking of all of those whom the Father has given to Him who received and believed His words as if they were the Father’s words. Here’s my take away. When we receive and believe the words of God spoken through Jesus and His disciples, we glorify Jesus, just as the disciples did.
Dear friend, you can glorify Jesus today as you receive and believe Jesus’ words that He gave in John 13-16. What were those words? Serve one another as Jesus serves us. Love one another as Jesus loves us. If you believe in God, believe also in Jesus. Jesus’ words and works are the words and work of the Father. Jesus has gone to the Father to send the Holy Spirit to manifest the presence of the risen Christ in the lives of all who are His. The Father is the vinedresser, Jesus is the one true vine, and we are the branches. Apart from Jesus we can do nothing. We are His friends. We can ask for anything we need to believe and love in Jesus’ name directly from the Father, and Jesus will do it. In this world, we’ll have tribulation, but He has made a place for us in Himself where we have peace. Do you believe and receive His words? In so doing, Jesus is glorified in you, just as He was in His disciples. Jesus is glorified by the grace He gives us to believe and receive.

Acknowledgment: Music from “Carried by the Father” by Eric Terlizzi. www.ericterlizzi.com

John 17:9.2 “I ask on their behalf; I do not ask on behalf of the world.”
Yesterday we rejoiced and were encouraged that we who have received and believed in Jesus through the words and witness of Jesus’ disciples were in God’s view. But what encouragement can we receive from who is not in view? The world has never been in view of this particular, exclusive love.
Those who were and are of the world were not to receive the blessing of His particular, exclusive intercession. The set of people known by Jesus as “the world” in this context may be identified as those who were not given to Him by the Father. I can hear some asking, “But what about John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only son…” In that context, Jesus speaking to Nicodemus, who thought that God only loved the Jews, needed to know that the Spirit of God was going to move among the Gentile world. So “the world” in John 3:16 referred to the Gentile world. However, in the context of John 17, “the world” Jesus referred to when He spoke with His Father, was those who the Father had not given to Him. Context determines the meaning of the words. How can we know who has not been given to Jesus? They are those who refuse to receive and believe the words and testimony of Jesus’ disciples. They do not believe God sent Jesus as the only way, truth, and life.
This truth should encourage us all the more to love those God puts in our paths each day by sharing with them Jesus’ words given to His disciples. And let us pray with Jesus to the Father on behalf of those He’s given to His Son. Those who are of this world will not believe, so don’t take it personally. They can’t believe because of the sin of unbelief. With Jesus, we must lovingly and trustfully leave those who reject Him in the Father’s hands. But we aren’t trying to identify those for whom Jesus didn’t pray. We love and share the words of Jesus given to His disciples, the gospel, to find out those for whom He did pray. They will respond because Jesus has and is interceding for them.

Acknowledgment: Music from “Carried by the Father” by Eric Terlizzi. www.ericterlizzi.com

John 17:9 “I ask on their behalf; I do not ask on behalf of the world, but of those whom You have given Me; for they are Yours;”
In this verse, Jesus identified for whom He interceded and those who were not in view. He directed His Father’s attention to those who had believed He was God-sent and had received His words. In verse 8 He said, “for the words which You gave Me I have given to them; and they received them and truly understood that I came forth from You, and they believed that You sent Me.” But not only His disciples are objects of this divine love, He interceded for all those who were in His Father’s view from eternity. For in vs. 20 Jesus broadens the view. "I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word.” Have you believed in Jesus through the word of His disciples? If so, you have been loved and in the view of the Father and Son from before the foundation of the world!
In the following verses we will see what Jesus asked on our behalf. But for today, be encouraged that Jesus prayed for you to be included in His glorious work He was about to do through His death and resurrection.

Acknowledgment: Music from “Carried by the Father” by Eric Terlizzi. www.ericterlizzi.com

John 17:8 “for the words which You gave Me I have given to them; and they received them and truly understood that I came forth from You, and they believed that You sent Me.”
When it comes to the good news which provides hope for mankind, who should we listen to? The gospel preached and taught by Jesus’ disciples get my vote. They received the words Jesus gave them and have faithfully recorded and explained them because they understood that Jesus came forth from God. They believed Jesus was sent by God to bring us to Him.
Here’s an example. Peter wrote, 1 Peter 3:18 “For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit;”
One of the ways we love people is to give an explanation of the hope that we have in Jesus. Those who knew Him best, walked with Him the longest, and were His followers were so convinced that He was God in the flesh that their message and lives became the foundation of the gospel and the church. That gospel foundation has stood the test of time. 1989 years to be exact. The Father, God gave Jesus the words to teach, Jesus spoke them, the disciples received and believed them, and they are still speaking them through the Bible. Listening to them is to listen to God.

Acknowledgment: Music from “Carried by the Father” by Eric Terlizzi. www.ericterlizzi.com