John 16:26-27
26 In that day you will ask in my name; and I don’t say to you, that I will pray to the Father for you, 27 for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me, and have believed that I came forth from God. (WEB) From John 13-17, Jesus is preparing His disciples for what was going to happen to them when He went to the cross. In today's Scripture passage, Jesus tells them that they will be able to pray to the Father directly in Jesus' name as a result of His death and resurrection. This is one of my favorite Scriptures on prayer, because Jesus tells His friends that the reason they have access to the Father is because the Father himself loves them! The Greek word for God's love that we are used to seeing is called agape. This type of love is mostly associated with the unconditional, predetermined love of God. But in this verse, the Greek word used for love is phileo, which is a more affectionate way to describe love. It would almost be like it means that the Father not only loves you, but He likes you too! If you have any doubts on whether or not you have access to your Heavenly Father in prayer through Jesus, may this encouragement from our elder brother reassure you. Jesus tells us that because we are 'in Christ', we now have the open access to our Heavenly Father any time, night or day. My prayer today is that we would all know in the deepest parts of our hearts that the Father Himself loves us and because He loves us, we can boldly enter His throne room at any hour of the day! Hebrews 4:14-16 14 Having then a great high priest, who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold tightly to our confession. 15 For we don’t have a high priest who can’t be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but one who has been in all points tempted like we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us therefore draw near with boldness to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy, and may find grace for help in time of need. (WEB) Comments are closed.
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