The Master’s Prayer Of Intercession
Uranda November 2, 1949
The Spirit of Intercession gives meaning to one of the outstanding characteristics of the Christ Expression on earth. The Spirit of Intercession made manifest through our Master when He was on earth was outstanding, and as He outlined the basis upon which the One Christ Body should be formed, by reason of which His Ministry on earth might continue, He made it plain that the Spirit of Intercession should find expression through the Branches of the One Vine, through the Members of the One Body.
The world is full of those who are ready to sit in the judgment seat; the world is full of those who are quick to bring accusation; the world is full of those who are ready to portray in word and attitude that which they conceive to be wrong with others, which they look down upon or condemn. It is not good to be an accuser of the Children of God. Nowhere do we find the Master instructing that we should be accusers one of another, setting ourselves up in judgment to condemn one another, but rather He said: “Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.”
Of all the wonderful words which He spoke, there are none more touching, more illuminating, more revealing, than those which are recorded in the closing prayer of His Ministry on earth just before the mockery of His trial and the ignoble journey to Golgotha, the “Place of the Skull.” The prayer with which He concluded His Ministry and His instruction to those who should follow Him, whether in that day or in this, was recorded and has come down to us, and it is my thought that we should consider His Words together tonight. This Prayer is called His Prayer of Intercession, for you, for each one who turns to God, whosoever, wheresoever he may be. Uranda read John 17
When we meditate upon the wonder and the glory and the beauty of these words and of what they mean to us tonight, we must recognize that there is nothing that can be added to increase the wonder of them; there is nothing that can be said to increase the beauty. There only remains the necessity that, in letting go in Love Response to God, each one shall feel and know the Illuminating Fire that burns within every word that each may let these words have true and lasting meaning in heart and mind and body and soul, for He, when He was on earth, prayed for us tonight, and for all who should believe on Him. Therefore, let us let His Prayer of Intercession be answered in our lives that we may be made perfect in One, to His Glory and to the Blessing of all who will receive, IN the Christ.
O LORD of Lords, I thank Thee that it is so, for Thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory forever. Aum-en. The Peace of our LORD Jesus Christ be with you in the Way, that you may rest in the Lord and let the Father do the works, to the end that the Light of His Love may shine through you in Blessing to all who will receive. Peace be unto you.
The Great Prayer Of Intercession
Uranda August 25, 1946
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:
As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.
And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
I have glorified thee on earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.
And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.
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.
Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee.
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.
I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine.
And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them.
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.
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.
And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.
I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.
They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.
As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.
And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.
Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;
That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us:
that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:
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.
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.
O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me.
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.
We find there a prayer which the Master spoke when He walked among men that includes us here tonight: “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word.” He Himself said that this prayer was a prayer which He prayed for you tonight. It applies to you here and now, and when this is realized it is recognized that what He expressed here is for you here tonight, to whatever degree you will let it be so. He said: “And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it.”
From that which we have considered with respect to what it means to be gathered in His Name, does that statement in the Master's prayer have any greater meaning for you? “And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them”—that the love wherewith the Father loved the manifestation that we speak of as Jesus Christ may be in you tonight—"and I in them.” Clearly, in all these things He revealed that those who truly believe on Him should be Members of His Body on earth, that the love wherewith the Father had loved Him might be in His Body on earth as it had been in the Body which He was, and that He might be in that Body.
His words in many places revealed that same glorious truth. When we therefore recognize the truth contained in this Great Prayer, and have actually realized that truth and its significance, we shall have been born again, which is the same as the resurrection which I have been talking about, or the adoption into the One Body, the entrance into the citizenship of the Christ Kingdom on earth. It all means the same thing, and it will mean that the Love of the LORD of Lords shall be in us; not something that is flowing merely toward us, not something that is offered to us, but something that will be in us. And if His love is in us, in that living, flowing current which is the very essence of His expression of being, think you that we can feel far away from Him? I think not.
Today we have considered what it means to be near to the heart of God. To me this means to be near to our LORD and KING, that He may do the works through His Body on earth today just as surely, just as effectively, as He did when He walked among men through that body which we know as Jesus, that body which ascended unto the Father. He plainly said that those who should follow Him would be Members of His Body on earth, and that He would be in them, just as the Father was in the body of Jesus.
And with respect to this Body He said: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do”—why?—"because I go unto my Father.” Jesus was ascending into oneness with His Father. It meant, then, that His Body on earth from thenceforth should be made up of many Members, and that through that Body He might perform greater works on earth than He had been privileged to perform while He was manifest as Jesus Christ. That is His Word. When will human beings so respond in love to Him that that Word may be fulfilled on earth? When will human beings so give thanks to Him, in the sense of letting go and letting Him receive that which is His own, that the love wherewith the Father loved Jesus may be in them?
He said, “...and I in them.” If the love of the Father that was in Jesus is in His Body today, and if He is in that Body made up of many Members—as He portrayed in the picture here, that it should be—then there is no question about His Kingdom coming on earth. He said, of those who remained, that if they had been enfolded in His Love, if they had been taught by Him, if they had loved and walked in His Love and in His Presence, they still had to be sanctified by the Truth. Even so, as I have brought you the word of Truth, have I said to you that no matter how much of the Truth you may know you must be sanctified by His Love, else it will not be the fulfilment of that pattern which He designed. So when we consider these things and draw near unto Him, when we respond in love to Him, we begin to know Him.
He says here: “O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me.” When we know Him because we have been drawn near unto Him, then we know that His Love is in us, then we know that His Love is flowing through us. And when we are sanctified by His Love—that is, when we have let His Love bring that fusion in the current of the Holy Spirit by means of which we cease to be instruments for human expression and become instruments of Divine Expression on earth—we know what it is to know Him. Nothing else matters. Human concepts are as nothing. Human ideas and desires and goals are as nothing. There is one thing only that counts: letting go in one-pointed Love Response to Him.
We have in this Great Prayer of Intercession [John 17], and especially coupled with other passages I have read previosly [John 12:24-28, 15:1, 16:7-14], the Master's magnificent and perfect focalization of His own Ministry at that point, and His opening of the vibrations for the cycle which should come with respect to what the disciples were supposed to accomplish and what we are supposed to accomplish as we share in that Ministry.
You notice that I used the word “perfect,” recognizing that that properly indicates the expression of complete Mastery and the fulness of Divine artistry with respect to all of the essential elements involved, an absolute focalization of absolute currents of power, on the basis of absolute laws and principles from the higher focal point of control in the Whole Holy World. In this we have a portrayal of what He had done in order to make the final outworking, through the Body that should be, not only possible but gloriously successful.
He recognized that through His personal manifestation He could accomplish only so much. He said it was expedient for Him to go away, because as long as He remained, the full formation of the Creative Triangle could not appear, and the operation of the Comforter, or the Spirit of Truth, through them could not bring the balance that was necessary with respect to their polarization in Love Response to Him. The primary vibration manifesting through Himself was of the Love Current, and it was that Current which primarily controlled those who responded to Him; and as He said, they needed to be sanctified by the Truth in addition to their complete polarization in Love, so that they might manifest that Body which He had outlined and permit that oneness to appear between that Body and Himself and the Father, that it might permit the manifestation of the works of God on earth.
With respect to the present time, the approach is made on the basis of Truth. The approach there was made on the basis of the primary current of Love, and then the sanctification had to be through the Truth. Now the sanctification must take place through Love, and that Love must come through Him in order that the works may be accomplished. That does not mean that the Truth does not sanctify, and it does not mean that the disciples had not been sanctified by the Love which He brought to them, but the complete sanctification rests on the perfect balance in the oneness of function, or the One Current of which there are two phases—the Spirit of Love and the Spirit of Truth—which, perfectly blended, in perfect balance, provide the Current by which the complete sanctification can be experienced, thereby permitting the individual to experience the reality of salvation in the true expression of Life.
Sanctification through Love is only a partial sanctification, and it takes a sanctification in the balance of the two to accomplish the real result. That is the reason why, for these many centuries, man has not experienced a true sanctification through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. There was either no balance with respect to the Truth or there was no balance with respect to Love. If people functioned on the Love Current, they let it carry over to emotional sprees, and if they undertook to function from the standpoint of Truth they tended to carry through in the intellectual realm and function on the basis of the letter of the law. When we permit a blended current of the Holy Spirit, which is made up of the Spirit of Love and the Spirit of Truth, to bring about a complete sanctification we can experience that which the Master is talking about here, and we will share the true expression of the Spirit of Love. Uranda read the Great Prayer of Intercession again.
© emissaries of divine light
