In Terry Wardle’s book, Outrageous Love, Transforming Power, he notes 8 characteristics of Jesus’ life that, if we emulate them, we will find ourselves getting out of the epidemic of spiritual immaturity that characterizes the church in western culture today. In today’s instalment, we look at the characteristic of intimacy, how spiritual maturity comes from making God your deepest desire. Based on John 17.20-26, you can watch the whole worship gathering below, or just the message below that.
Tag: John 17
Defining a Disciple
In this service, we hear a message in which Jesus prays to the Father for himself and for his followers, and in it he defines what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. Enjoy the whole worship gathering, or tune in to the message which starts at 34:04.
The message is based on John 17.1-12.
God gives you more than you can handle
People often say that God will never give us more than we can handle.
Malarkey.
God gives us more than we can handle all the time! The fact is, God never gives us more than he can handle through us.
There can be times when we feel overwhelmed. I’ve been there, and I imagine you have been, too. But as followers of Jesus, we do well to remember that he is in our corner. In fact, he even prayed for our protection.
We tend to refer to “Our Father, who art in heaven…” as the Lord’s prayer, but that is a model Jesus gave his friends. The real Lord’s prayer – the prayer that came from Jesus’ own heart – is in John 17. And in the middle of that prayer, here’s what Jesus prays for his followers:
“Holy Father, you have given me your name; now protect them by the power of your name so that they will be united just as we are. During my time here, I protected them by the power of the name you gave me” (John 17.11b-12a, NLT).
Take comfort! As Jesus was preparing to go to the cross, dying and rising again, and ascending into heaven, he was asking the Father to protect us by the power of Jesus’ name.
Remember that, next time you find yourself in a difficult place.
