This high-priestly prayer, breathed by our Lord in the shadow of the cross, is the very heart of God laid bare for His people. To have our minds fixed upon it, and our souls pleading it, is a blessed and safe employment. You have done well to bring these words, for they contain all that a believing soul can desire, joy, preservation, sanctification, unity, and the indwelling of divine love.
Our Lord’s first petition here is that His joy might be fulfilled in His own. That joy is no fleeting mirth dependent upon outward ease, but the deep, abiding gladness of knowing the Father’s love and doing His will. It is a heritage of joy, as David said, “Thy testimonies have I taken as a heritage forever, for they are the rejoicing of my heart.” Too many believers live as though their religion were a dull duty; but when a man has truly taken Christ as his Savior, the whole face of his faith is changed. The joy of the Lord is his strength, and even in the crucible of trial, the pure gold of that joy is not one drachma less, the fire only separates the alloy, and the gain in purity is the greatest of gains. Be not satisfied until you can say, not only that you believe, but that Christ’s joy remains in you, and your joy is full.
Next, observe how He entreats the Father not to take us out of the world, but to keep us from the evil one. We are left here in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom we are to shine as lights, holding forth the Word of life. The world will hate us, for we are not of it, even as He was not of it. Yet we are sent into it, as surely as Christ was sent by the Father. And what does that sending mean? It means a consecration entirely to the one object for which Christ has set us apart. We are to be by occupation Christians, not playing at religion, but making it the whole current and force of our nature. This, and nothing less, is our high calling.
But how shall we be kept from the evil one? By the Truth. “Sanctify them through Thy Truth; Thy Word is Truth.” The more Truth of God we believe, the more sanctified we become. It is the living operation of Truth upon the mind that separates a man from the world unto God. Just in proportion as Truth is given up, worldliness and frivolity prevail. A Church which holds fast the Truth once delivered will find itself pushed into the place of separation; the world and the worldly church will shun it. Therefore, bind this Word upon your heart; let it dwell in you richly. It is the only food for soul-hunger, the only help in spiritual danger, and you will find that as you grow in the knowledge of Him who was from the beginning, you will see more and more the unsearchable riches of Christ.
Then the prayer rises to that great petition for unity, “that they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee.” This is a unity of holy beings, not a confederation of error with truth. We shall never be one till we are sanctified. And note well that the object of this unity is not that the world may be saved by it, but “that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me.” The oneness of Christ’s people becomes a testimony to His divine mission. Yet do not suppose that all the world will be converted by this sight. The prayer itself anticipates that the world, as such, will not know the Father. The unity is that the love wherewith the Father has loved the Son may be in them, and Christ Himself in them. That blessed indwelling is the secret and the goal of all.
And what is this love but a love that surpasses knowledge? It is the distinguishing mark of God’s people that they know the love of Christ. To taste its sweets, to realize personally, experimentally, and vitally, the love shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, this is the privilege of the child of God alone. O, if you and I did but know the sweetness of His love, we would not be so careless! Contemplate Him; think much of His Person and work. See how the Father loved Him before the foundation of the world; see how He laid down His life that He might take it again, and in that laying down, the love of the Father to the Son and to us shines forth with a glory that blinds the eye of carnal reason. The Father sees no iniquity in Jacob, for the atonement has put away all manner of offences; and because we are in Christ, we share with the Head in all His glories.
Let me press home one searching point. The reason men do not believe on Christ is often not a mental difficulty but a moral one: “How can ye believe, which receive honor one of another, and seek not the honor that cometh from God only?” Delight in the praises of others saps the very foundations of faith; it makes a man afraid of following the Truth where it leads. If you would know the Father’s name, you must be willing to be despised by the world. May the Holy Spirit use this prayer to make us such as are wholly consecrated, bound heart to heart in holy unity, joyful in tribulation, cleansed by the Word, and filled with that love which the Father hath toward the Son in us.
Do not rest until you can say, “I in them, and Thou in Me.” The whole force of Christ’s intercession is tending to this one thing, to bring us into a visible unity in Himself. Our part is to abide in Him, to love not the world, and to hold forth the Word of Life. So shall the world know that the Father sent the Son, and so shall we, even now, begin to see His glory.
"But now I am coming to You; and I am saying these things while I am in the world, so they may have My joy fulfilled within them. I have given them Your Word and the world has hated them. For they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I am not asking that You take them out of the world, but that You keep them from the evil one.
Prayer Focus: God, Thank You for loving me. Thank You for loving me, Jesus. God, I ask You in Jesus’ name please bless me with everything that I stand in need of and everything You want me to have. 
