Live to Love Scripture Encouragement

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

John 17:7 “Now they have come to know that everything You have given Me is from You;”
Everything Jesus said was from God, and His disciples knew it. Jesus’ words changed everything for them. Do we listen to the words, the writings, of His disciples as if they were the words of the living almighty God? Do we believe that everything we have read and studied in this precious gospel of John is from God through Jesus to us?
John wrote that the way we know who is from God is that they listen, not to the world, but to him and the other disciples who wrote and testified of Christ. 1 John 4:4-6. “You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.”
The disciples knew that everything Jesus said was from God. It changed their lives. Jesus said He would make a place for them in Himself, and then come dwell in them and they would bear fruit for the glory of God as He loved through them. They believed and kept His word in their hearts and minds. Jesus kept His word, and gave them eternal life in Himself. Those first disciples lived to love with Jesus and started a tsunami of love that pours out down through history until all of those who belong to God are swept up in the deluge of love. Such is the power of God’s word manifested in Jesus Christ. Let’s keep the tsunami rolling!

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