Week of April 23

Eavesdropping on Jesus 
by Skip Heitzig

Have you ever eavesdropped on someone when they pray?  I'll admit I have.  At times I've overheard my wife Lenya singing and praying to God.  I know it was private, but since she was talking out loud I took the opportunity to listen, and I was blessed by it.

In John 17, we have the opportunity to eavesdrop on Jesus as He prays to His Father.  It's the longest prayer of Jesus recorded in the New Testament, and what makes John 17 so wonderful is that you get to see what's important to Jesus. In this chapter the veil is pulled aside and you get to peek into the very heart of God, in this intimate conversation between the Son and the Father.

Jesus meant for us to eavesdrop on Him.  He spoke this prayer out loud so that people could hear it, and so that it would be recorded for all history. And we should pay close attention to it, because these were the things that were on Jesus' heart to pray for; these were His priorities.

After praying for Himself and the disciples, in the last verses Jesus prays for "those who will believe in Me through their word" (v. 20). That's us, you and me.  Jesus had you in mind when He was speaking to His Father. Can you imagine that--Jesus putting you on His prayer list?  Does that excite you?  Jesus Christ loved you enough to pray for you and He's still praying for you, even today (Romans 8:34). That's awesome!

Because Jesus prayed for the things in John 17, it means that this is the basic will of God for our lives. When we cooperate with the very things we read about here, when we pray for the same things, we are lining ourselves up with His will. The secret of prayer is to find out what He wants, and to pray that. When you pray for the will of God, you will see results, and you'll see joy and power in your life.

1 John 5:14-15 says, "Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him."

John 17 is the greatest prayer ever prayed, and it's wonderful that Jesus allowed us to eavesdrop on Him.  Read it over, study it, and become conformed to what Jesus expresses to His Father. You can't go wrong that way!

Copyright © 2010 by Connection Communications. All rights reserved.

For more from Skip Heitzig, visit ConnectionRadio.org,
and click here to listen to today's broadcast of The Connection with Skip Heitzig.