The Lord’s Prayer- Part Three

Our focus on the Lord's Prayer now turns to John 17 for the final four parts and I will be taking the first and last parts while Scott Kyle comes in on parts two and three.

As I mentioned before I believe John 17 to be the true Lord’s prayer. “Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son may also glorify You, as you have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him. AND THIS IS ETERNAL LIFE, THAT THEY MAY KNOW YOU, THE ONLY TRUE GOD, AND JESUS CHRIST WHOM YOU HAVE SENT” John 17:1-3.

I must stop at this point for I believe John 17:3 should be our focus daily. That text provides us all with the formula to eternal life. Our whole purpose in being is to know God and He is the only true God despite what many church leaders have recently said about there being many avenues to God. For we are also to know Jesus Christ whom God has sent to the world. “No one comes to the Father except through Jesus Christ” John 14″6. As an old car dealer in Indianapolis used to say, “Noooo Body!”.

“I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work that You gave Me to do. And, now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself with the glory which I had with You before the world was” John 17:4-5.

You might have noticed that these verses are conversation between the Son to the Father as this portion of His prayer is for Himself. Later on in this prayer He will focus first on His disciples, which Scott will inform you of next, and then lastly He directs His prayer to all believers.

A final point is to be made here. The glory that the Son had with the Father before the world was is told of in John 1:1 which precedes Genesis 1:1. The latter “beginning” was a specific period in time, but the “beginning” in John 1:1 is timeless eternity. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and THE WORD WAS GOD”.

Some day in the near future the SPM Indiana team should be prepared to do a series on The Triune Godhead. But until that time, Scott will come forth in a few days with our next part in this series.