John 17:15: “My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.”
Jesus had just eaten his last meal with his disciples, knowing that within 24 hours he would hanging on a cross. We can be sure that what he prayed for them was of the utmost importance to him. What did he ask for them? That they would not be taken out of the world – that is, become isolated from it – but that they would remain in the world, insulated from its corrupting influences, and witness to him. Jesus instructed them (and us) to go into all the world and tell others about him. Often we invite ‘the world’ to leave their comfort zone and come to ours. But that’s the opposite of what Jesus did. He wants us to leave the place and environment where we feel at ease and get alongside those who do not yet know him, to be with them where they are geographically, culturally, in their pain, hurt, alienation and so on.
Jesus has another name – Emmanuel – ‘God with us’, not ‘God way up there’. John wrote of Jesus in 1:14: “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved” where to? “into our neighbourhood” (The Message). Too often our reaction to the challenge of living in the world is to retreat out of it. We become negative towards the place where God has put us, denying by our attitudes the fact that God is Creator and Sovereign. We are the incarnation of the gospel to our family, neighbours, colleagues, fellow students and whoever we happen to meet. For many we are possibly the first and only evidence of the reality of the grace of God.
If that is indeed the case – that I am the first, perhaps only, evidence of the truth of the good news of salvation for many, how convincing or compelling am I in what I say and do? Food for thought…
God, use me out there in the world today. Amen!
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