The Gospel for Wednesday of the seventh week of Easter is taken from John 17th chapter 11 through the 19th verse. Lifting up his eyes to heaven, Jesus prayed, saying, holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, just as we are one. When I was with them, I protected them in your name that you gave me. And I guarded them and none of them was lost except the Son of destruction in order that the Scriptures might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you. I speak this in the world so that they may share my joy completely.

I gave them your word and the world hated them because they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil One. They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth. And as you sent me into the world, so I send them into the world and I consecrate myself for them so that they also may be consecrated in truth.

There are many ways to understand the message of Jesus, but the one that is expressed here is really important. It is Jesus came into the world to reveal the truth, reality, what life is really for and what it’s about and how we’re supposed to live in it and change it. We have been set apart, consecrated with the power to hold and to teach and to be in the truth. That’s our destiny and that’s the work of God within us. Sam Satan SA Foreign Closing Prayer Father, so much of what you teach we first have to believe in before we understand it. Give us the wisdom to stay with you, even though we’re not sure what you’re asking of us.

Give us perseverance, curiosity, imagination, so we can find and live in the truth. And we ask this in Jesus name, Amen.