<\/p>\n
As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.<\/strong>\u00a0(John 17:18)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
John 17 is the majestic prayer of Jesus to God the Father, prayed only a few hours before He was arrested, tried, beaten, and crucified. Jesus prayed for Himself (1-5), for His disciples (6-19), and for us \u2013 those who would believe through the preaching and testimony of His disciples (20-26).<\/p>\n
Verse 18 tells us one thing Jesus recalled in His prayer, that the Father had\u00a0sent<\/strong>\u00a0Him\u00a0into the world<\/strong>. Jesus then declared that He was sending His disciples in the same way (I also have sent them into the world<\/strong>).<\/p>\n
<\/div>\nThink of the first aspect: that Jesus Christ is the ultimate \u201csent one,\u201d whom the Father sent to bring salvation to lost and needy humanity. This makes Jesus the first and greatest\u00a0missionary<\/em>\u00a0the universe has ever seen. A missionary is a \u201csent one,\u201d and Jesus was\u00a0sent<\/strong>, and He was sent\u00a0into the world<\/strong>.<\/p>\n
Consider how the Father sent the Son into the world:<\/p>\n
\u2013 Jesus was not sent as a philosopher like Plato or Aristotle, though He knew higher philosophy than them all.
\n\u2013 Jesus was not sent as an inventor or a discoverer, though He could have invented new things and discovered lands unknown to His people.
\n\u2013 Jesus was not sent as a conqueror, though He was mightier than Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar.
\n\u2013 Jesus was sent to teach.
\n\u2013 Jesus was sent to live among us.
\n\u2013 Jesus was sent to suffer for truth and righteousness.
\n\u2013 Jesus was sent to rescue lost humanity.<\/p>\nConnect all that with how Jesus sends His disciples. Remember, Jesus said that it was in the same manner:\u00a0As You sent Me\u2026I also have sent them<\/strong>. It\u2019s certainly true that Christians can be great philosophers, inventors, and even conquerors. But those terms do not fundamentally describe the work of God\u2019s people in a general sense.<\/p>\n
As believers, as followers of Jesus Christ, our greatest contribution to the world is to teach and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, to identify with and draw near to lost humanity, to suffer for truth and righteousness as God appoints us, and to be God\u2019s instruments in bringing His salvation to the world. It\u2019s not bad to help humanity in other ways, but being sent as Jesus was sent is our unique calling as God\u2019s people.<\/p>\n
Interestingly, earlier in this prayer, Jesus said He was not praying for the world, but for His people (17:9). Yet, this prayer has great and true concern for the world. Jesus wanted to reach the world, but He would do it through disciples who would be so transformed that they would go forth even as Jesus was sent.<\/p>\n
Jesus told His disciples that He was leaving them and would soon return to His Father (John 16:5). But Jesus wasn\u2019t abandoning them; He was sending them. There\u2019s a big difference between the two.<\/p>\n
As the Father sent Jesus, so Jesus sends us. (Guzik)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.\u00a0(John 17:18) John 17 is the majestic prayer of Jesus to God the Father, prayed only a few hours before He was arrested, tried, beaten, and crucified. Jesus prayed for Himself (1-5), for His disciples (6-19), and for us \u2013 … Continue reading “70.p. John 17:18”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-200076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-prayers"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200076"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":200079,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200076\/revisions\/200079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}