Prayer
Briefly prepare your heart in silence, and ask the Holy Spirit to awaken your sense of anticipation that God is about to speak to you through His Word. Then, before you read, I invite you to pray this simple prayer from Psalm 86:11-12,
Teach me Your way, Lord,
that I may rely on Your faithfulness;
give me an undivided heart,
that I may fear Your name.
I will praise you, Lord my God, with all my heart;
I will glorify Your name for ever.
Amen.
Reading
27 ‘Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? “Father, save me from this hour”?‘
While the Gospel of John does not record Jesus’ agony in Gethsemane, here in John 12 it reveals the turmoil and struggle Jesus faced. He was fully human. He shared our deeply human desire to survive. And yet He could plainly see that if He continued on the path of obedience to the Father, He would soon be put to death. And so He struggled against the temptation to turn back. He wrestled with the temptation to pray: “Father, save me from this hour”.
But Jesus overcame that particular temptation. Instead of asking to be delivered from “His hour” (i.e. His suffering and death on the Cross), Jesus said:
‘No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name!’
Jesus returned to His life’s deepest desire – to glorify the Father’s Name. Jesus lived to bring glory to God the Father. He lived to let people see the glory of God the Father in His life. He directed every thought, word and action towards this great over-riding goal – to glorify the Father’s Name. And if that led to the Cross, it was a price worth paying, in His opinion.
Then the Father Himself stepped in to strengthen Jesus, and a great thundering voice came from heaven saying:
‘I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.’
What a promise! What an encouragement to Jesus! The cry of His heart was to bring glory to the Father; but, in His humanity, Jesus humbly recognised the possibility of failing in His mission by turning back in the face of fear at some future point. And so God spoke His word of encouragement.
‘I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.’
It is imperative that we, in our struggle against sin and temptation, should cultivate within ourselves the same deep desire to bring glory to the Father. We should be praying for it every day, as we pray the opening line of the Lord’s prayer, “Hallowed be Thy Name”. After all, this is simply Jesus’ prayer in John 12:28 with a slightly different word. To pray that God’s Name be “hallowed” is just another way of praying, “Let Your Name be glorified through my life today.”
And it is imperative that we, in our quest to glorify God the Father’s Name, should be listening for His voice of encouragement. There are many situations today that threaten to turn us back from our chosen path of glorifying His Name by obeying everything He commanded us. But when His voice of encouragement and love breaks through we will find the strength to keep going. So, listen for His voice today.
Contemplation
Please take time to ponder what Jesus has commanded us. Turn these declarations over and over in your mind. Keep them in mind throughout the day and live in step with Your King, Jesus.
As a disciple of Jesus Christ:
- I will seek to glorify Him in all situations!
- I will listen for His voice of encouragement!
Holy Spirit, please help me to hear the voice of the LORD and please empower me to live every moment of today in such a way as to glorify Him. Amen.
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