A Word in Season: Where He is (John 17:24)

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The writer to the Hebrews tells us that Jesus Christ ever lives to make intercession for us.

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His work, now that he has completed his sacrifice and ascended to the right hand of the majesty on high, is one of intercession.

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He's speaking to the Lord on our behalf. His sacrificial work is completed, but his work as our reigning king now continues in this particular dimension.

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What then does our risen king plead for us? What is he asking

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God on our behalf? Well in John chapter 17 we get a window into the heart of Christ as he prays for his people.

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And in verse 24 he said, I desire that those whom you have given me may be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which you have given me, for you loved me before the foundation of the world.

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You see there Christ's affection and you see his intention. He is praying for those whom the

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Father has given him. He's praying for his elect ones. He's praying for those whom the

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Father has put into his hands by divine gift and whom he's purchased with his blood by that atoning sacrifice.

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He has a heart now toward them. They belong to him. He's laid down his life for them and he intends now to gather them to himself.

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Now he's going to do that first of all by calling them out of the world to himself, by going out and finding them and drawing them through the preaching of the word.

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But he also desires not just that they would come to him spiritually, but they would be with him physically, that they would see him in his risen glory.

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That's the window then into the praying of Christ that I think at least gives us some hint as to how he now intercedes for us with perfect wisdom, perfect insight, perfect understanding, perfect rule.

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He is pleading that we might be brought to him. Everything that we do, everywhere that we go, every situation that we face, every circumstance that we come in is bathed in the prayers of the

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God man who loves us with a love that we cannot fully ever calculate as an expression of the love of God toward us, who pleads for us with an intensity that we cannot properly calculate or imagine.

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And all his prayers through every step of our life are that these things would be means by which

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God brings us to be with him, ultimately to see his glory.

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So whatever you may be facing today or in days to come, whatever you have faced, you have been brought through it in part because of the prayers of the

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Lord Jesus Christ, our great intercessor. His desire is that because he loves you and he knows that you, if you're a

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Christian, you love him, that you would come to be with him where he is.

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He knows that this is the desire of your heart and it's very much the desire of his.

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And so he is pleading at God's throne. He is not having to wrestle with God in the sense that he has to argue with him, but rather he is, as it were, presenting himself and all the fruits of his finished work in order that from his heavenly father he might be the conduit, the channel through which sanctifying blessings flow in order that we might come at last to be with him where he is and behold his glory, which the father has given him.

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And that will be the moment of transformation. When we see him face to face, eyes not seen or ear heard, the things that are stored up for us.

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But we do know this, that when we see him, we shall be like him.

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And so Christ's prayers are that we might receive in and from him the crowning blessings of his saving work.

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Now, I hope that makes some difference. First of all, to the way that you might pray yourself about some of the situations that you and your brothers and sisters face.

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But it certainly ought to change the way that we go into the trials and difficulties that we might face in this world.

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To know that we have one in heaven, our advocate before the throne, who is constantly pleading with his loving and beloved father that we, his people, purchased with his blood, might be kept, blessed, directed, fed, shepherded, led, all the way until at last we are with him where he is.