This morning we continue our journey into this year, focusing on making “Intentional Progress.” I shared six steps to intentional progress with you, and I will continue to walk through them over the next few weeks. As a reminder, here are the six steps.
Here are the steps again:
1. Pray/Discern
2. Plan/Prepare
3. Wait/Discern God’s Timing
4. Execute/Measure Progress
5. Wait/Faith & Patience
6. Receive When Harvest Time Comes
A few days ago, I introduced you to what I consider to be the actual “Lord’s prayer.” It is a prayer Jesus prayed in John 17. We have covered the first ten verses. Today we will only look at one verse, verse 11. In this verse, Jesus prayed, “I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.”
So what does this mean for you today? A few things.
1. Jesus left the world, but you remain behind to continue what He started.
In His prayer, Jesus said, “I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you.”
— I have told you several times that Jesus was the incarnation of God (God in the flesh) on the earth, and we are the continuation of His incarnation.
— Jesus left heaven and came to the earth. He redeemed us from sin and death. He showed us how to live as a human conduit of the divine. He became a living example of what it looks like to extend heaven to this world. And when He was finished, He went back to the Father.
— Jesus went back to the Father, but you and I live down here, in this world. You and I are now supposed to live the way He lived and flow in the vein He was flowing in. He came with a mission, and we are to continue the mission (CM).
— In military logbooks, when you log an event that marks the completion of a mission, you put MC next to it. That stands for Mission Complete. However, when the mission is not complete, and you are to keep going, you mark CM. This stands for Continue Mission. When Jesus said, “It is Finished” on the cross, He was logging His MC. For Him, His part of MISSION COMPLETE. However, once we left, He left behind a portion of His mission that continues. That mission continues through us. For us, it is CM; CONTINUE MISSION!
— We are to continue what Jesus started. We are to live the way He lived. While Jesus was on the earth, He did not expect the Father to do everything FOR Him because He was the one in the world. However, Jesus did expect the Father to do things THROUGH Him. This is the way we are supposed to live.
— The Father is in heaven, so there are many things He will not do in the world unless a human, who lives in the world, agrees with Him to become the conduit through which His power can flow, from heaven to the earth. Guess what? God expects you to be that human. Stop waiting on God to do everything FOR you and start believing Him to do it THROUGH you. When you minimize your humanity and allow God’s divinity to flow through you, the impossible is possible, lives are changed, and God is glorified!
— Jesus left the earth, and He left us behind. “As Jesus is, so are we, in this world” (1 Jn 4:17). It’s time for us to live like Him!
2. God left you in the world, but He did not leave you unprotected.
In this Prayer, Jesus said, “Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me.”
— Jesus did not pray for the Father to take us out of the world, but since He knew we live in a fallen world, He prayed for us to be protected in the world.
— Notice how powerful the name of Jesus is. This name was given to Jesus by the Father, and Jesus made it clear that there is power in His name.
— There is divine protection in the name of Jesus.
— There is divine healing in the name of Jesus.
— Supernatural power can flow in the name of Jesus.
— When you are led by the Holy Spirit, you will adequately discern the power in the name of Jesus, and while the Father did not take you out of the world, you will learn to tap into His protection while you are here.
— God never promised us a pain-free life. As a matter of fact, the Bible says, “All that live Godly will suffer persecution” (2 Tim 3:12). Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble” (John 16:33). Thankfully, He went on to say, “But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
— In this world, real people face real challenges every day. Thankfully, our real God has promised to be with us every step of the way. His presence brings us peace, power, and protection.
3. God wants us to be ONE with Him and each other.
— The source of Jesus’ power was His harmony with the Father. He was ONE with the Father in every way. There is complete unity and agreement in the Godhead. There is no separation of disunity between the Father, Son, and Spirit. The Holy Spirit will lead you contrary to the Father or the Son. They are ONE. Jesus prayed for us to have this type of unity with Him and the Father and also with one another.
— Jesus prayed for us to be ONE as He and the Father were one. When you die to yourself and learn to follow the Holy Spirit, you will stop having unnecessary, unwarranted, and unproductive disagreements with members of the Body of Christ. There is power in unity. We will be unified when we all allow the Holy Spirit to lead, guide, and direct us. However, if any of us gets “in the flesh,” it will always lead to dissent, disruption, disagreement, and disunity. So if you are around a bunch of arguing, the Holy Spirit is not leading someone; someone is “in the flesh.”
— For us to be ONE with the Father and each other, we must learn to live the way Jesus lived. Jesus only said what the Father told Him to say, and He only did what the Father led Him to do. When the Holy Spirit leads you, you can live the same way. Living off of what God said, in the Bible, through His instruction, is always good. But living off of what God is saying to you today, through the Holy Spirit, as you follow His voice, is much better. When you live this way, you are able to become ONE with the Father, like Jesus was ONE with the Father, and you will also experience a level of unity amongst your brothers and sisters in the Body of Christ that you had not experienced before, when you are “in the flesh.”
— The lesson here is that God is looking for us to be ONE with Him and ONE with each other. That will never happen when there is too much of “us” in the way! As you learn to die to self, you will be more unified with God and with those around you. You will also have more peace in a world that sorely needs it.
That is enough for today.
Declaration of Faith:
Father, I thank You for taking the time to teach me about Your grace through the life of Your Son. In Jesus, I see the perfect example. While Jesus was in this world, You were in heaven, He was in the earth, and You were able to flow through Him freely because He submitted to You in all things. Jesus is no longer here. Jesus left the world, and He went back to You, in heaven. Now I am the one in the world. I am here like Jesus was here. I have the Holy Spirit like Jesus had the Holy Spirit. I can hear Your voice like Jesus heard Your voice. You can flow through me — giving me the words and performing the work — as You did through Jesus. So, Father, I give myself over to You, to be used of You like Jesus was used of You. I am just like Jesus, and I even get to use the power in His name. In the name of Jesus, I operate as He operated in this world. Through me, souls are saved, burdens are removed, yokes are destroyed, and lives are changed forever. Not by my power, but Your power. As I live this way, submitted to the Holy Spirit, I learn to become ONE with You and ONE with my brothers and sisters in Christ. This is how I know GREATER IS COMING FOR ME! I declare this by faith. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
This is Today’s Word! Apply it and Prosper.
