"Dad, it's time. Display my bright brilliance so I in turn will show your bright brilliance. You put me in charge of everything human so I might give real and eternal life to all in my care. And this is real and eternal life: That they know you, the one and only true God, and me, whom you sent. I blessed you on earth by completing down to the last detail what you assigned me to do. And now, Dad, bless me with your very own brilliance, the very brilliance I had in your presence before all this was even here.
I spelled out your character in detail to the men and women you told me to take care of. They were yours in the first place; then you gave them to me to watch over, and they have now done what you said. They know now, beyond the shadow of a doubt, for the message you gave me, I gave them; and they took it, and were convinced that I came from you. They believed that you sent me. I pray for them. I'm not praying for the God-rejecting world but for those you gave me to care for, for they are yours by right. Everything mine is yours, and yours mine, and my life is on display in them. For I'm no longer going to be visible in the world; they'll continue in the world while I return to you. My Good Dad, guard them as they pursue this life that you negotiated as a gift through me, so they can be one heart and mind. As long as I was with them, I guarded them in the pursuit of the life you gave through me; I even posted a night watch. And not one of them got away, except for the rebel bent on destruction.
Now I'm coming back to you. I'm saying these things in the world's hearing so my people can experience my joy completed in them. I gave them your word; the godless world hated them because of it, because they didn't join the world's ways, just as I didn't join the world's ways. I'm not asking that you take them out of the world but that you guard them from evil. They are no more defined by the world than I am defined by the world. Make them perfect - blessed - with the truth; your word is beautiful truth. In the same way that you gave me a mission in the world, I'm blessing myself for their sakes so they'll be truth-blessed in their mission.
I'm praying not only for them but also for those who will believe in me because of them and their witness about me. The goal is for all of them to become one heart and mind - just as you, Dad, are in me and I in you, so they might be one heart and mind with us. Then the world might believe that you, in fact, sent me. The same dignity you gave me, I gave them, so they'll be as unified and together as we are - I in them and you in me. Then they'll be mature in this oneness, and give the godless world evidence that you've sent me and loved them in the same way you've loved me.
Dad, I want those you told me to watch over to be with me, right where I am, so they can see my dignity, the brilliance you gave me, having loved me long before all of this was even here. My Good Dad, the world has never known you, but I have known you, and these students know that you sent me on this mission. I have made your very being known to them - who you are and what you do - and continue to make it known, so that your love for me might be in them, exactly as I am in them."
John 17
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