Heavenly Father I praise You for the plans You have had for me even before the time of creation. I praise You for the morning as I rise, the day as I walk through it and the night as I prepare to go to sleep. I praise You for Your all-encompassing love.
Holy Spirit Your word says: My little children, I am writing these things to you, so that you do not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous One. [1 John 2:1] Since Christ is my advocate help me to recognize my worth in the words He prayed over us when he prayed: Now I’m returning 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 the Evil One. They are no more defined by the world than I am defined by the world. Make them holy—consecrated—with the truth; Your word is consecrating truth. In the same way that you gave me a mission in the world, I give them a mission in the world. I’m consecrating myself for their sakes so they’ll be truth-consecrated 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, Father, are in me and I in you, So they might be one heart and mind with us. Then the world might believe that you sent me. The same glory 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. Father, I want those you gave me to be with me, right where I am, so they can see my glory, the splendor you gave me, having loved me long before there ever was a world. Righteous Father, the world has never known you. But I have known you, and these disciples 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. (Amen) John 17:13-26, the Message