Do You Want to Know Jesus' Heart?

I am more and more convinced that we need to get this one thing more than anything else right now.  This is Jesus' prayer for us!  This is His heart! Why don't we live this?  It is not a list of things to do but a total surrender of all that we are to Jesus.  Jesus said that we are not defined by the world when we are His and yet we continue to try and do just that - define ourselves by the world's standards!  We try and tell the world about who it is we believe in and yet forsake the one thing that Jesus himself said would be the convincing point: unity through love.  Father God, help me see others with your eyes, with your heart!  It's all about you, it's not about me and what I think or want.  It's all about You, Jesus!

John 17 (The Message)

Jesus' Prayer for His Followers

 1-5 Jesus said these things. Then, raising his eyes in prayer, he said: 
   Father, it's time. 
   Display the bright splendor of your Son 
   So the Son in turn may show your bright splendor. 
   You put him in charge of everything human 
   So he might give real and eternal life to all in his charge. 
   And this is the real and eternal life: 
   That they know you, 
   The one and only true God, 
   And Jesus Christ, whom you sent. 
   I glorified you on earth 
   By completing down to the last detail 
   What you assigned me to do. 
   And now, Father, glorify me with your very own splendor, 
   The very splendor I had in your presence 
   Before there was a world.

 6-12I spelled out your character in detail 
   To the men and women you gave me. 
   They were yours in the first place; 
   Then you gave them to me, 
   And they have now done what you said. 
   They know now, beyond the shadow of a doubt, 
   That everything you gave me is firsthand from you, 
   For the message you gave me, I gave them; 
   And they took it, and were convinced 
   That I came from you. 
   They believed that you sent me. 
   I pray for them. 
   I'm not praying for the God-rejecting world 
   But for those you gave me, 
   For they are yours by right. 
   Everything mine is yours, and yours mine, 
   And my life is on display in them. 
   For I'm no longer going to be visible in the world; 
   They'll continue in the world 
   While I return to you. 
   Holy Father, guard them as they pursue this life 
   That you conferred as a gift through me, 
   So they can be one heart and mind 
   As we are one heart and mind. 
   As long as I was with them, I guarded them 
   In the pursuit of the life you gave through me; 
   I even posted a night watch. 
   And not one of them got away, 
   Except for the rebel bent on destruction 
   (the exception that proved the rule of Scripture).

 13-19Now I'm returning to you. 
   I'm saying these things in the world's hearing 
   So my people can experience 
   My joy completed in them. 
   I gave them your word; 
   The godless world hated them because of it, 
   Because they didn't join the world's ways, 
   Just as I didn't join the world's ways. 
   I'm not asking that you take them out of the world 
   But that you guard them from the Evil One. 
   They are no more defined by the world 
   Than I am defined by the world. 
   Make them holy—consecrated—with the truth; 
   Your word is consecrating truth. 
   In the same way that you gave me a mission in the world, 
   I give them a mission in the world. 
   I'm consecrating myself for their sakes 
   So they'll be truth-consecrated in their mission.

 20-23I'm praying not only for them 
   But also for those who will believe in me 
   Because of them and their witness about me. 
   The goal is for all of them to become one heart and mind— 
   Just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, 
   So they might be one heart and mind with us. 
   Then the world might believe that you, in fact, sent me. 
   The same glory you gave me, I gave them, 
   So they'll be as unified and together as we are— 
   I in them and you in me. 
   Then they'll be mature in this oneness, 
   And give the godless world evidence 
   That you've sent me and loved them 
   In the same way you've loved me.

 24-26Father, I want those you gave me 
   To be with me, right where I am, 
   So they can see my glory, the splendor you gave me, 
   Having loved me 
   Long before there ever was a world. 
   Righteous Father, the world has never known you, 
   But I have known you, and these disciples know 
   That you sent me on this mission. 
   I have made your very being known to them— 
   Who you are and what you do— 
   And continue to make it known, 
   So that your love for me 
   Might be in them 
   Exactly as I am in them.