Every year, our church has a mission emphasis week. This is a normal occurence in most Alliance Churches, having the focus on missions that we do. To kick off the week, Pastor Ben offered a 'missionary report' about his ministry to the Republic of Texas. It was pretty funny! He hit all the points, in humorous fashion, that you normally would hear from missionaries, even explaining the strange local language that you run into.
After the 'missionary report', we got serious and looked at John 17:1-3. What should strike you about Jesus' prayer for himself is that it reveals the motivation that Jesus had for coming to earth. It is the gift of eternal life. All that for us? Wow! It goes on to explain what exactly eternal life is (vs 3). It is the knowledge of God and Jesus Christ.
The apostle Paul speaks of this in Philippians 3, verse 8 - 11, where he writes, "...What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ - the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead."(NIV)
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