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Christ cares about your thoughts.
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We're often bombarded by darkness and fear and disappointment, and sometimes even tragedy and crisis, and during those times it's more important than ever for us to turn our thoughts back to God, where he can refresh us and reassure us.
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One of the great temptations that's very easy to fall into when life is tough is to isolate ourselves.
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It's a natural instinct, right to try to pull ourselves back from the world and hide and lick our wounds Because we don't want to feel those sharp pains and those piercing emotions.
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And sometimes it feels like having to deal with that on top of functioning in the world and interacting with others is just too much.
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And, if we're being honest, sometimes even being around people we still feel isolated, we still feel lonely, we still feel disconnected.
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We still feel disconnected.
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So it's not even always that surrounding yourself with people during a difficult time is necessarily the remedy, because it may not bring you that tangible relief.
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When we're going through a trial or a temptation or a tragedy, that's when we really want to kind of erect these walls and hide behind them, and that's a perfectly natural uh, normal thing to do Certainly myself, normal thing to do Certainly myself.
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I'm a professional at hiding away like that and being locked up in my house facing my own demons, despite how it may feel Oftentimes, when we feel least like being around people is when it's most critical.
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It would seem that Christ believes in teamwork.
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It's a funny thing to say, but think about how his ministry unfolded.
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He was always traveling with a team.
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He always had people around him, escorting him, protecting him, loving on him and, yes, sometimes they were a burden too, but he wasn't out there doing it alone.
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And you might even say that when we think of the Holy Trinity the Father, son and Holy Ghost even that's a group, it's a team.
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Another aspect of it is here's God, presumably the creator of the entire universe, presumably the creator of the entire universe, and yet he still made us as part of the team, part of his family, people through whom he would carry out his plans.
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He really didn't have to do that.
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But when we look at Christ's example about isolation, one of the things that I find really difficult is when I'm really under trial or I'm really down, is continually recommitting myself to working with the group.
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That could be anybody.
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That could be your therapist, that could be friends, family.
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You know one thing I think that's tough about it is when you're in pain.
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You don't necessarily want to increase your obligations.
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You don't want more accountability.
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When you're wounded, when you're beaten down, that's when you want less accountability.
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You want fewer people looking over your shoulder, you just want to be left alone.
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And I fail at this, and I've generally failed at this, I think, over the course of my life.
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And I don't mind telling you the cost of hiding behind the walls, hiding in your house, escaping accountability.
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It's expensive.
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It's expensive because that approach often is not restorative, it's not regenerative, it actually slows down your progress and holds you back.
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My mentor used to tell me that there are three ways to learn a lesson the easy way, the hard way and the tragic way.
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The easiest way is just learning from other people's mistakes.
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The hard way is learning from our own mistakes and suffering those, whatever the consequences of us messing that thing up or falling down on the job.
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And then, of course, the tragic way is to just not learn from either and just to continually repeat and repeat in this circle, not gaining any knowledge or wisdom from others nor from what we ourselves have just suffered through.
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How many of us have repeated the same mistakes?
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How many of us are sad or embarrassed by looking over our lives and realizing how much wiser we could have done it?
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How many of us look back and say, oh, wow, I'm delighted, I made all the perfect choices.
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I mean, I was just a genius and I could see the future and I understood the past and I just made all the perfect choices.
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I mean I was just a genius and I could see the future and I understood the past and I just made all the right moves.
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Most of us have some regrets or, at the very least, can say, gee, I wish I had known this thing 10 years ago, 20 years ago, I wish I'd have known this coming into adulthood, or I wish I would have known this prior to being married or prior to taking this certain job of Jesus as an overcomer in John 17 can give you great strength because it keeps you outside of the mindset of victimhood, because Jesus was never a victim.
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He never walked like a victim, talked like a victim.
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He came on a mission and that didn't mean that he didn't suffer, that didn't mean that people weren't trying to him for sure, but he had come with an assurance from God, the Father, and despite what the world was throwing at him.
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He refused to fall into the victim's mindset.
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Most of us aren't that good at that.
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I'm not that good at that, you know.
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When I'm really beaten down or in a really long, difficult stretch, I definitely feel victimized and I feel helpless and hopeless and despairing, and hopeless, and despairing.
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Let's break down the prayer in John 17 so that we can really understand what all it covers and why it's so powerful.
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So first, in John 17, 1 through5, christ prayed for himself, in that the work that was to be done would be on earth as it is in heaven.
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Then he prayed for his disciples that the Father would keep them and sanctify them.
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He closed his prayer by praying for you and me and the whole church.
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He prayed that we might be unified in him and one day share in his glory.
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So why did Jesus pray this prayer?
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Well, certainly he knew that there were sufferings coming down the road that he needed to gird himself up for, and as he contemplated the glory that his suffering and death and resurrection would bring to the Father, he took on new strength.
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He was re-energized.
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Unfortunately for many of us, when we're going through something, we're finding it very difficult to focus on the light at the end of the tunnel, or the glory, or the joy, or the victory that we're going to come into.
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I mean, a lot of the reasons why we're feeling so defeated is precisely because we don't know if we're ever going to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
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We don't know how difficult our path is going to be, how stretched out it's going to be, who's going to really help us through or not?
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But for Jesus, even though he knew exactly what that road was, he knew every second minute, hour, day that he was going to suffer and how all of these things were going to unfold.
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All of these things were going to unfold All of the betrayals, all of the impoverishment, all of the just, unjustified hatred and persecution, and to then have that all be capped off with torture and death.
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I mean, how could someone really bear that, knowing that that was coming down the pike, without having a way to really re-energize themselves, to be able to focus on that joy, focus on that impending victory?
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And so that's what Christ did.
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Christ focused on that, which, of course, is in contrast to most of us, because most of us, when we're down, that's kind of where we're at.
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That's what we're talking about.
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That's what we're talking about, that's what we're obsessing about.
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I'm going through this, I'm going through that and, believe me, I'm not saying it critically, because I frequently do that and I wish I didn't, or I wish I were stronger, or I wish I could dwell more in this glory that Christ was already envisioning and imagining that he was coming into.
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I'm sure I would feel a lot stronger and have a lot more resilience if I could take hold of that.
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And I think one of the reasons why this prayer is left to us in the Word is so that we can internalize its message.
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And it's interesting that, despite all he was facing which, obviously looking at his future versus like that of his disciples or other believers he could make a pretty strong argument that he was going to go down the hardest path and certainly in light of the fact that he was actually innocent, that this wasn't some payment for sin, neither God nor man could hold anything against him that would justify what all was going to be done to him.
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So, if you can just imagine, it's kind of like how we feel about children, right, it's one thing when a full-grown adult makes mistakes or breaks the law or something and we tolerate or we accept that punishment or whatever the ramifications are for them.
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Bad things happening to young children it's especially disconcerting and seems especially horrible because of their innocence.
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We know they're not sinful or they're not bad people, or they haven't made bad choices or they don't deserve what's happened to them.
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They don't deserve what's happened to them.
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We know that they didn't deserve to be diagnosed with cancer when they were three years old.
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We know they didn't deserve to be beaten or abused in their household when they were five years old.
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We all pretty much agree that when someone's innocent, it's an especially painful and tragic situation.
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And this was the case for Christ, despite him obviously not being a child anymore when it came to this aspect of his innocence.
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In that sense, he was worthy of that type of mercy.
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He was worthy of that type of mercy.
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Now, granted, you see, the world didn't extend that mercy to him.
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And what an eye-opener that is.
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Because for many of us, as we walk through the world, we recognize that there's not really like justice, right, there's nothing, that life is not fair.
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Bad things happen to all of us, whether we're doing good or bad, or wrong or right, or we're younger or we're older, so we know what it's like to just keep running into horrible things, but we don't know what that's like to be an innocent in that.
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So here Christ was.
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He knew he was going to face all these things and he's praying this prayer and indeed he needed that strength.
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But it's fascinating to me that he decided to include his followers in that, praying for them that they would be unified and strengthened and looked after.
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So imagine, like for them, what an encouragement that must have been.
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Because, on one hand, what a discouragement it would be to be walking along with the Son of God, or even if you weren't even clear on exactly who he was.
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Here you are, you're walking around with somebody performing signs and wonders and sharing love and forgiveness and salvation with people.
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So you love him, right, he's your teacher, he's your friend, and once you realize that he's going to go through all these trials, that he's on this inexorable path like this is the way he's going and these are how these events are going to unfold.
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That would be very discouraging on numerous levels, right?
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One you're going to lose your friend, your constant companion.
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Two you're going to lose your physical manifestation of God.
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Can you imagine if you had been walking around with God and you're seeing people getting healed and people are being fed and love's being shared and mercy and grace, and now that's going to be taken away.
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I mean, wow, it just doesn't register.
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So Christ prayed for them and, by extension, prayed for all of us, knowing that we would need that fortification, that, as we faced our own trials, we needed that revivification, we needed our batteries recharged, because really it should have been an encouragement to them at any rate, because he prayed about their security.
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He prayed about their joy, their unity and their future glory.
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So I mean that covers a lot of bases.
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Future glory so I mean that covers a lot of bases.
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He also prayed it for us today, so that we would know all that he had done for us and all that he had given to us and all that he will do.
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In this prayer, our Lord declares four wonderful privileges we have as his children, privileges that help to make us overcomers.
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Let's pay special attention to these aspects of the prayer.
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In John 17, 1-5, we learn that we share His life.
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In 6-12, we share His name.
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In 13-19, we have His Word.
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In 20 through 26, we share His glory.
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So think of the power that's bound up in what all he's blessed us with, what all he's given us access to, and not just in the hereafter but also in the here.
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And that's why it's so important that we keep returning to him with our thoughts through prayers like this that put us in the victorious mindset, because otherwise, when we look around, if we're left to our own devices or we turn on the TV or are generally leading us downhill.
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And who can afford to be barraged with those type of depressing, defeating thoughts when we're trying to stay strong in a situation, when we're trying to stay strong in a situation?
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So if Christ needed that reinforcement, if he was praying those types of prayers, if he was keeping his eye on God and his promises and his mission, surely we too need to do the same thing for us to survive and thrive through, no matter what happens.
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I hope you find this message encouraging.
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This is Jimmy James Johnson.
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Guilt-free Faith, keeping it 100 on everything Christian.
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Leave a comment, ask a question, send me a text.
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You can go to guiltfreefaithcom.
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Send a text.
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I'll read it on the air and answer it as best I can, and take care of yourself.
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We got more good news on the way.
