Seedbed's Daily Text delivered to your inbox each morning. The Prayer for Holiness LISTEN NOW! November 6, 2020 John 17:11-19 (NIV) 11 I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled. 13 "I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. 14 I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. 15 My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. 17 Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. 19 For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified. CONSIDER THIS I’m not sure if we know this definitively, but I believe Jesus prayed this prayer in the presence of his disciples. Otherwise, how could it have ever been written down? I picture the twelve there with him and agreeing with “Amens” all along the way. “. . . so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them.” YES, LORD! AMEN! “. . . for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world.” YES, LORD! AMEN! “. . . My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.” YES, LORD! AMEN! “. . . Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.” YES, LORD! AMEN! “. . . As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.” YES, LORD! AMEN! It matters because we are them now. We need to bring our agreements alongside this prayer. Petitions and prayers like these, from the heart and mind of Jesus, spoken by us in agreement in the power of the Spirit. . . . well, these are the prayers that go places. They create trajectories of movement deep in our spirits and they become navigational beacons by which Jesus guides our steps to take us places we would have otherwise never gone.  One in particular I would lift out today: “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.” I love that this is verse 17:17. I want us to rememberize this one. And let’s personalize the pronouns. “Sanctify [us] by the truth; your word is truth.”  “Sanctify [me] by the truth; your word is truth.”  “Sanctify [insert names of your band] by the truth; your word is truth.”  Sanctify. The word is hagiazo, pronounced “hag-ee-ad-zo.” It’s the same word that gets translated in the Disciples Prayer as “Hallowed,” in, “Hallowed be your name.” It means make holy, which unfortunately we tend to think of as “make religious.” I think of it as asking for the Lord to make me transcendentally translucent with the brightness of the Holy Spirit in a way that the Light of God can shine in and through me with the fiery and brilliant radiance of Jesus—through the totality of who I am as an ordinary human being. To ask to be “sanctified” is to ask for one’s life to have the effect of a burning bush—on fire but not consumed; a sight which inspires the awe of God in the awakened and evokes a breathtaking curiosity in those yet asleep.  “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.” We are sanctified by the truth, which is the Word of God. Now, this is the work of the Holy Spirit. But the Spirit of God works by, with, and through the Word of God. To equate this with “reading one’s Bible” is to get at it, yet still miss it. The notion here of the Word and Truth is “revelation.” It is not a flat concept of the Bible as a mere document, but the Revelation of God as a Living Word. Jesus is the Word and the Truth. Holy Scripture is the text by and through which he teaches and trains us in the power of the Spirit. We must have a larger, richer and deeper awe and appreciation for the Word of God, not as a way of increasing our knowledge but as a way of increasing our sense of knowing God, which as we saw earlier in the text, is eternal life.  “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.” THE PRAYER Abba Father, we thank you for your son, Jesus, who perfectly brings together Word and Spirit, Grace and Truth, Prayer and Faith. Sanctify us by the truth; your word is truth. Come Holy Spirit and sanctify me, Lord. Open the eyes of my heart to perceive your vision for my sanctification. Hallow me Father until I am like Jesus at which point I will be most myself. We pray in Jesus name, Amen.  THE QUESTIONS How are you growing in your understanding of what sanctification is? What did you used to think? What do you believe now? How do you perceive you are being sanctified by the Word of God?  Who is a person in your life or past life that strikes you as a “hallowed” person? How so?  For the Awakening, J.D. Walt Sower-in-Chief seedbed.com The post The Prayer for Holiness appeared first on Seedbed. Share Tweet Forward Copyright © 2020 Seedbed, All rights reserved.  You signed up to receive Daily Text posts via email at dailytext.seedbed.com.  Our mailing address is:  Seedbed 415 Bridge St. Franklin, TN 37064 Add us to your address book J D Walt J.D. Walt serves as the Sower-in-Chief for Seedbed whose sole ambition is to sow for a great awakening, by developing theological and ministry training resources for the local church. A sought after speaker and conference leader, a published author and songwriter, J.D. is also the voice of Seedbed's Daily Text. He hails from Dumas, Arkansas and currently resides in Franklin, Tennessee with his family. Want to buy J D Walt's Books on Alibris? Want to change how you receive these emails? You can *update your preferences or *unsubscribe from this list.  Subscription Information This email was sent to Webmaster220 Bible Study Blog   *the blog owner has deleted the hyperlink intentionally