John 17:20-26 (NRSV)
Read John 17:20-26 on biblegateway.com
Verse 20"I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, Verse 21that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. Verse 22The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, Verse 23I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
Verse 24Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. Verse 25"Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. Verse 26I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them."
Devotion
Mahatma Gandhi said that if it had not been for one thing, he would have been a Christian, for he loved Jesus and his teachings. What turned him away from the church were the number of Christians whom he experienced as unchristian, fundamentally because of the racism he encountered at their hands.
Jesus prays: “That they may all be one…so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” You and I are the living witnesses to Jesus Christ. Our words and lives may be the one thing that the Holy Spirit uses to bring others to faith (see 2 Corinthians 3:3). Or, God forbid, a thoughtless word or action, even the failure to call out the world’s sin and evil, may be what drives people away from Christ. So let us look at our lives through the eyes of Jesus and measure our words and lives by his love that touched and healed the marginalized and the outcasts.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, give us the strength and faith to hold a plumb line to our lives, that they may be straight and true to you, the measuring stick of righteousness. Amen!
Interested in digging deeper into today’s text?
Read more here.