Purposeful Paradox

     Most Christians refer to the prayer recorded in the Sermon on the Mount as the “Lord’s Prayer.” A better name would be the “Model Prayer,” for He gave it in response to the disciples’ desire that He teach them how to pray. John 17 records what is truly the Lord’s Prayer. It is what Jesus prayed after He washed the disciples’ feet and prepared them for the coming of the Comforter who would help them understand all that Jesus had taught them throughout His earthly ministry. He knew the time had come to finish His earthly mission.
       Jesus began by speaking on earth what was in Heaven—how He would suffer yet be glorified and return to the glory of the 3rd Heaven. “Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You, as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him. And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do. And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.”
       Jesus begins to pray for the disciples whom God had given to Him for His earthly ministry. “They were Yours, You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word. Now they have known that all things which You have given Me are from You. For I have given to them the words which You have given Me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came forth from You; and they have believed that You sent Me.”
       These Jewish men were part of God’s people. But God gave them to Jesus to continue to preach the New Covenant. They had received the message and acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah. In effect, the Lord’s unique prayer for His immediate disciples is what baptized them into the New Covenant of salvation by faith, for they had believed in Him and confessed Him before men. Later, they would receive the baptism of the Spirit for ministry at Pentecost.
        As Jesus continues to pray, He prays for all His disciples, present and future, who would continue His earthly ministry. “I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.”
       End-Time Lesson: Thus began the paradox of the life of a believer:  existing in this natural, physical world but not of this world. Since we cannot deny the natural aspects of our physical body, it seems like a paradox, for we connect to this natural world through our five natural senses. Our true existence—the “real us”—is our regenerated spirit, the new man that was “born again” when we accepted Jesus as our Savior.
          It’s interesting that some people speak of a sixth sense, by which those who develop this can interact with the realm of the spirits. Yet the Creator only gave us five senses. Five is the number of grace, God’s favor and goodness toward mankind. Six, on the other hand, symbolizes the world. In truth, any sixth sense is not from God. Instead, it comes from the corrupted, fallen spirit of a person who is duped into thinking he or she can access the entire spiritual realm. In reality, all they are contacting is the evil hierarchy in the heavenlies (the atmosphere above the earth).  What is received may be fact, but it comes through familiar spirits that use this to open the door to other demonic spirits, as with modern-day psychics.
         Each day every believer must recognize that our true existence is based on the fact that we are seated in the heavenly places with Christ by faith. This is what enables us to face whatever comes our way in our earthly existence. This is why we need to keep our minds stayed on Christ. This is why our Lord taught us, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt. 6:19-21).
       This is why the Lord’s priestly prayer ends with these words: “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth” (emphasis added). Jesus laid aside the glory of Heaven to come to the earth—the peculiar paradox of the divine Godhead becoming flesh to initiate the next stage in God’s mystery-plan. And now, we live in our own purposeful paradox of existing on earth but living according to Heaven’s ways so that we can be lights in the darkness, declaring His return at the appointed time. That is our message of comfort, hope, and victory!