John 17:20-26
Jesus Prays to His Other Believers
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—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.
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.
25 “Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. 26 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.”
Jesus handpicked His Twelve Disciples...The Disciples were ordinary men...These ordinary men who would go out and teach the world a New Religion called Christianity...The eleven Disciples plus Mathias would start the process of telling others about Jesus and His good news...And Christianity would eventually become the religion of the Roman Empire and one of the most followed religions in the four corners of the earth around 380 a.d....Emperor Theodosius I that year made Christianity the Roman Empire's authorized religion...
In Jesus prayer before His arrest, He specifically talks about His Disciples to God...He wanted other believers to believe in Him...Jesus says that He had have given His Disciples the glory that God had given Him...Jesus ask that His Disciples may be one as He and God are One...Jesus would be in them and God would be in Him...Jesus being in His Disciples would bring them to a complete unity...Then the world would know that God had sent Jesus to earth, because of their complete unity...God had sent Jesus to live among us and He LOVED His Disciples as God had LOVED Him...Jesus wanted those that God had given Him to be where He was and to be with Him where He was going...Then they would see His glory, the glory that God had given Him because God has always LOVED Jesus even before the creation of the world...
A powerful prayer about and for Jesus' Disciples and their Great Commission to tell the world about the gospel...