December 14

1 These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come, glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee:

2 As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him 3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

4 I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.

5 And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.

6 I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me, and they have kept thy word.

7 Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee.

8 For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me.

9 I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine.

10 And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them.

11 And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.

12 While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled.

13 And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.

14 I have given them thy word; and the world hath hailed them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

15 I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.

16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

17 Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.

18 As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.

19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.

20 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;

21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, are in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one;

23 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.

24 Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me, for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.

25 O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee; but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me.

26 And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.

Our Lord declares that His faithful followers "are not of the world." The apostles also with one voice guard us against cultivating the friendship of the world; and teach us to come out from among them, and to live as a distinct "peculiar people," "shining among them as lights in the dark place."

But while they are not of the world, they are yet in it. And our Saviour prays not that they should be taken out of the world, but that they should be kept from the evil.

"Peter was ready (John xiii. 37) to follow his Lord out of the world. Wearied Christians often would sigh to depart and be with Christ. But that aspiration must be checked within the most reverent limits. What could the world's great carcass do if the salt should all depart? What but suffer the fate of Sodom for want of ten righteous men? The good men hated by the world are the world's preservers."—D. D. Whedon.

When once we trust in God, He takes charge of our souls, that we may trust him to the end. When God has put His children in the arms of the Lord Jesus Christ, that He may carry them across this perilous voyage of life, and land them safe in heaven; and when Christ has promised to present them pure and spotless before the throne, do you suppose He, under whose feet is all power, will fail to fulfil His promise, and to perform what He has undertaken? If there were nothing but ourselves we might fear; but as long as we have the amplitude, the fidelity, the tenderness, and the love of Christ, we have that which is more than a match for our sin.

Closet Promise. -The Father Himself loveth you, because ye have loved Me.-John xvi. 27.

"I cannot always trace the way Where thou, Almighty One, dost move, But I can always, always say That God is love.

"Yes, God is love; a thought like this Can every gloomy thought remove, And turn all tears, all woes, to bliss, For God is love."