(John 17:20-23 ESV) 20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.”
By the way, “glory” is a reference to the Holy Spirit, I believe. God “dwelled” among the Israelites by the presence of his glory in the Temple, just as the Spirit dwells in us as temples of the Spirit.
And this leads John to declare that God “abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.” The Spirit is both a means by which God abides (dwells) in us, but also a means by which God assures us of our salvation.
(Rom 8:16-17 ESV) 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs–heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
This passage is an allusion back to —
(Rom 8:15 ESV) For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”
We cry, “Abba! Father!” because the Spirit is in us. An evidence of the Spirit is our cry to God as a beloved, trusted father. We enjoy a relationship with God much like that enjoyed by Adam and Eve before the Fall and by Abraham and Moses. We get to speak to God himself — with no mediator and no reservation required.
And that brings us back to —
(1Jo 3:22 ESV) and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.
Even a pony? Even a Corvette? That is one broadly worded promise! We’ll he heal my chronic illness?
But God refused even Paul’s request for the removal of his “thorn in the flesh.” And he refused Jesus’ request to avoid the cross. What on earth could he mean?
John will return to the subject in chapter 5 —
(1Jo 5:14-15 ESV) 14 And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.
This time, John adds the limiter “according to his will.” But that would seem to destroy the power of prayer altogether. After all, if it’s God’s will already, why pray?
(Jam 5:16 ESV) 16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
James assures us that our prayers have “great power,” but not that they will always be answered favorably.
I think part of the solution is found in —
(Luk 11:9-13 ESV) 9 And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 11 What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; 12 or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
Jesus speaks of asking God for gifts and explains that God will give us the gifts we really need, not necessarily the gifts we ask for. And then, in a surprising twist, he promises the Holy Spirit.
Now, the outpouring of the Spirit was to be a sign of the coming of the Kingdom, which the Jews had been praying for for centuries. And the coming of the Kingdom meant many other blessings: the Messiah would be king, the nations would be invited in, God would bless his people and destroy his enemies!
Most Jews, of course, prayed for an earthly kingdom, but that would have been to pray for a scorpion, and God was too wise to give them what they asked for. He gave them what they really needed — the Kingdom and his Spirit.
Indeed, sometimes we fail to recognize God’s gifts as having more value than what we pray for.
(2Co 12:9-10 ESV) 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
God had to teach Paul how to think in the upside-down way of Christianity. We pray for healing and strength, and God tells us to celebrate weakness and suffering.
This is not an easy lesson, and I don’t pretend to fully understand it, much less to have entirely bought into the theory. My intellect has gone ahead of my will, I suspect. This is no easy thing.
And so, let me suggest this exercise. Think of those disappointments in life you’ve suffered and consider what good has come from them. I’m not saying all bad things turn out great — at least, not that we’ll understand the benefits in this life. But most people have suffered a disappointment that turned out to be a blessing.
So why pray at all? If God is so much smarter than us (and he is), why bother to even ask? Well, because he loves us and he wants to be dialogue with us. He wants us to come to him with our problems and to trust him. And there are, of course, countless examples in the scriptures of God’s mind being changed by prayer. Indeed, Jesus teaches —
(Luk 18:2-7 ESV) 2 He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. 3 And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ 4 For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.'” 6 And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. 7 And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them?
