Summary of passage: Jesus says he has revealed God to the disciples. They have obeyed him and accepted Jesus as God. Glory comes to Jesus through them. God has given the disciples and us to Jesus. We are His. We will bring glory to God.
Questions:
6) Part personal Question. My answer: Because we are God’s gift to him (Jesus). We have believed in Jesus. We will bring glory to Jesus. It’s hard to internalize that I bring joy to Jesus especially when my life is wrought with sin. It helps to know I’m on his path and doing his work.
7a) Because they obeyed God, accepted the teaching, knew Jesus’ origin, and believed in Jesus as God’s Son.
b) Personal Question. My answer: By following Jesus everyday in all the little things in life that add up to the big things in life. By having faith in him. By showing the world our faith to bring Jesus glory.
Conclusions: Thought we could have dug a little deeper into these questions instead of focusing so much on the personal. See End Notes for more.
End Notes: This prayer is to the disciples initially but is extended to all believers as well. Here, Jesus is giving the disciples over to God. Only as people see the Father at work in Jesus do they have a proper concept of God.
Manifest is a better translation that revealed in the NIV. Jesus manifested God to his disciples in all that he did: miracles, the way he lived, the love, the compassion, the holiness of God. So we are to manifest God as well in all we do.
God gave the disciples to Jesus (Luke 6:12-16). Yet they had faith in Jesus as the Savior. Both must occur for eternal salvation.
This prayer is for the disciples. It is the disciples who will bring the rest of us to faith.
Spurgeon says, “There is an old proverb; it is, ‘Love me, love my dog.’ It is as if the Lord Jesus so loved the Father that even such poor dogs as we are get loved by him for his Father’s sake. To the eyes of Jesus we are radiant with beauty because God hath loved us.” Because God loves us, Jesus loves us. And thank God for that! He loved us enough to pay our penalty for sin. Amazing!
Believers belong to both God and Jesus. Everything we have belongs to God, but not everything He has belongs to us. Anyone can say to God the Father “all mine are Yours“; but only Jesus could say “and Yours are Mine.”
Jesus is glorified in us. Think on that a moment. Think of our actions every day. We must be mindful that Jesus is in us and must be glorified. How would your actions change if you remembered that?
