Jesus prayed for all of his followers. Ever.

It’s in John 17. It’s at the end of his last seminar with the disciples before he was murdered. After talking with his dad about the work he had done, he asked God to help the disciples.

It makes sense, doesn’t it? I mean, when your kids leave for the day, you ask God to protect them. When I finish a counseling session or a class, I often say, “Help them remember everything You want them to know and forget everything that I just made up.”

It’s a kind of blessing,  a surrender.

But then Jesus starts talking about another group of people. He says,

My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message…

Jesus was anticipating that these eleven would tell other people about him. That they would tell stories, they would describe miracles, they would do the very thing that he had been doing for the past 3 years. They would go and make disciples.

And what did Jesus ask?

I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.

Last week, I wrote about a conversation I was in about how to help each other be disciples.  In our conversation, we made wonderful lists of how to help each other. In that discussion, someone asked, “Are these nice things or are they God things?”

It was a good question. Our invitation is to live like Jesus lived, not simply like good manners would suggest.

But our first item was, “pray for each other.”

I guess that’s living like Jesus lived.

Especially if our prayer is to get along.