Not Alone
written at Friday, October 7, 2011
I know I am not alone, and I thank God that He given me friends I can count on in my life. Do you know what's the most encouraging thing? When you share a struggle, an issue, or a prayer request with that friend, he says, "You know what? Me too." or "I struggle with that too, we'll pray for us." That's just the best thing that one can hear from a friend in my opinion.
I think the most powerful life-giving promise that is given is the knowledge of the truth that we have a God who is not distant from suffering, but who came down to be very much a part of it. Hebrews 4:15 certainly explains this very well, "For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin." Knowing that is liberating.
Just imagine that, in whatever that you are going through now, when you feel like you're the only one in the whole world, you feel alone, you feel as though no one cares or understands. You are brought back to the time love came down to rescue you.
You are brought back to John 17:20-26. With that high priestly prayer that Jesus made for all believers.
“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you 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. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one, I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.
"Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”
Not Alone
written at Friday, October 7, 2011
I know I am not alone, and I thank God that He given me friends I can count on in my life. Do you know what's the most encouraging thing? When you share a struggle, an issue, or a prayer request with that friend, he says, "You know what? Me too." or "I struggle with that too, we'll pray for us." That's just the best thing that one can hear from a friend in my opinion.
I think the most powerful life-giving promise that is given is the knowledge of the truth that we have a God who is not distant from suffering, but who came down to be very much a part of it. Hebrews 4:15 certainly explains this very well, "For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin." Knowing that is liberating.
Just imagine that, in whatever that you are going through now, when you feel like you're the only one in the whole world, you feel alone, you feel as though no one cares or understands. You are brought back to the time love came down to rescue you.
You are brought back to John 17:20-26. With that high priestly prayer that Jesus made for all believers.
“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you 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. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one, I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.
"Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”
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Knowing
What matters supremely, therefore, is not
in the last analysis, the fact that I know God,
but the larger fact which underlies it --
the fact that He knows me.
J. I. Packer
