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John 17 is a prayer from Jesus to God about glorifying God and praying that God would be with us and that we would be one together with Him and His Father.

 

John 17:3 says, “This is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God, and the One You have sent — Jesus Christ.”

 

This is the foundational scripture of Intend to Live because it tells you what eternal life is. It tells you what true life is. It tells you the truth. In order to know God, you have had to have met God. In order to have met God, you were either introduced to God by someone or met Him directly because He chased you down and introduced Himself to you. If you have been introduced to God and have gotten to know Him, you are one with Him.

 

John 17:21 says, “May they all be one, as You, Father, are in Me and I am in You. May they also be one in Us, so the world may believe You sent Me.”

 

For the world to believe God sent Jesus, we must be one with Them! In order for us to be one, we must love one another. In order for us to be one with God and Jesus, we must love God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

 

John 17:23 says, “I am in them and You are in Me. May they be made completely one, so the world may know You have sent Me and have loved them as You have loved Me.”

 

Don’t you know that Satan wants to divide us so the World won’t know God sent Jesus!

 

Not only do we need to be one so the world may know God sent Jesus, but also so the World knows that God has loved them, those of this world, as God has loved Jesus Christ His only Son.

 

Don’t you know that Satan doesn’t want the world to know that God loves them! He tells them and us all the time that God doesn’t love us. He is lying, again!

 

1 John 4:7-10 says, “Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent His One and Only Son into the world so that we might live through Him. Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

 

Love. That is what we must become better at. How can we be better at loving? We can follow the example of God and His Son, Jesus. We can be better at loving others. Even when we aren’t loved, we must love. It’s not that we loved God because we didn’t. He loved us so much He sent His Son to be the payment for our sin or to take on our punishment in our place. We deserve to die. We deserve to suffer. We deserve to be separated from God for all of eternity in darkness, in shame, in lies, in hate, in disease, in suffering, in anxiety, in fear, in worry, in guilt, in pain, in anguish, in isolation, enslaved, in captivity, in torment, in HELL.

 

Thankfully we have a Savior. Jesus Christ took on all that for us and He, being God’s Son, and being perfect and without sin, took on all that for us and defeated death. He came to our world, took it on, defeated it. He did the opposite of what Adam did, Eve did, and what we do. Instead of disobeying His Father, He obeyed! He did it. He did it because He loves His Father. He did it because He loves you. Not because you love or loved Him.

 

Love your spouse in a better each day. Yes even when he/she doesn’t love you. Love your children better each day. Yes even when you’ve done so much and they still aren’t loving you. Those are ways you can become more like Christ. Those are relationships that teach you to be less selfish. Those are relationships that teach you how to love others ahead of yourself.

 

Love your brothers and sisters in Christ. Love your neighbors.

 

Love those who don’t love you! That’s a concept from out of this world!

 

“You have heard that it was said, Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,”

Matthew 5:43-44

 

If we can get our act together and love well, treat others better, show others you care about them, we’ll spread more light, we’ll spread more seeds, we’ll see more fruit.

 

Let’s be doers. Let’s be interested in others. Let’s ask others about their life, their parents, their children, their good times, their bad times, their fears, their favorites, their beliefs, their opinions. Let’s react with compassion. When we have the means to help someone in need, let’s do it!

 

“There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because He first loved us.”

1 John 4:18-19

 

The world will see our love for one another and know that God, the creator, sent Jesus.

 

When we are worried, fearful, impatient, or unkind, we are acting as if we are of this world. We are not acting as if we are in God or that He is in us.

 

When we are loving, faithful, helpful, or kind, we are acting as if we are not of this world, which is true if we have been born again and our home is actually Heaven.

 

If I can become better at loving others, I can become better at attracting others to Christ, at planting seeds for the Kingdom of God, a shining light so others can experience God personally as I have.

 

Love is the work of our faith. Without the work of obedience, our faith is no good.

 

If Abraham had not offered Isaac but just believed without action, his faith would have been dead by itself.

 

If Rahab had been fearful and not received the messengers from Israel and kept them safe, her faith would have been dead by itself.

 

God help me to have works. God help me to take action on your Word. God help me to love others as you have loved me.

 

May our prayers be less about our health, our wealth, our lives, and much much more about our love. May we pray and have faith and add in the work of loving and obeying.

 

“If a brother or sister is without clothes and lacks daily food and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,” but you don’t give them what the body needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith, if it doesn’t have works, is dead by itself.”

James 2:15-17

 

“In this, love is perfected with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, for we are as He is in this world. There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because He first loved us.”

1 John 4:17-19

 

We love because He first loved us,

 

Intend to Live