Psalm 119:1-24; Dan. 2:17-30; 1 John 2:12-17; John 17:20-26
What was Daniel’s strategy? Prayer. Not just his own prayer but he asked his friends to pray for wisdom and discernment for him as well and, lo and behold, the strategy worked. What was his response to God’s mercy and goodness? He blessed God, he extolled His Name and gave Him praise. He didn’t just say thanks and move on, he expounded on the greatness and goodness of God. Daniel begins his presentation to the king by deflecting the honor for the revelation to God. He will take no credit for himself in the matter. We should follow Daniel’s example in these things.
Jesus prays for all who will believe the testimony of the disciples concerning Him. Our unity will be a testimony to the world about Him and the power of the Holy Spirit to change lives. The last time we had such unity for which Jesus prays is Genesis 11 and the tower of Babel. The difference this time is that our purpose isn’t to make our name great on earth and in heaven, but to hallow His Name and to make His Name great on earth as it is in heaven. Our lack of unity is a discredit to the Name of God and we need to work towards unity among the various denominations of the church, unified in our proclamation of Him. Such unity was the point of the early councils of the Church and the creeds they introduced. It was important that we all be on the same page with respect to certain points of theology even if different churches had different expressions of worship, ministry and mission. Can we begin by joining Jesus in this prayer for unity?
How do we conquer the evil one? In this passage John twice writes that the young men have defeated the evil one and it is important that we undertake to do just that. Knowledge is for children, they know their sins are forgiven and they know the Father. Maturity comes from doing battle with the enemy of our souls and seeing Him defeated. We move from belief to battle in our lives as we begin to take up the armor of God (Ephesians 6) and to eradicate sin from our lives by the power of the Holy Spirit and attentiveness to temptation and inculcating the disciplines of prayer, fasting, study of the Word, and other means into our lives. We need to practice what we preach if we are to see maturity in our lives.
He sits at God’s right hand till all His foes submit,
And bow to His command, and fall beneath His feet:
Lift up your heart, lift up your voice;
Rejoice, again I say, rejoice!
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