Jesus Prays for Himself, Disciples & Believers

My pre-trip scripture reading for today is from John 17.  As I prayed and meditated on this chapter, my reflection is that there is much spiritual warfare going on all around us.  Jesus prayed for Himself, His disciples, and all believers to be protected as they are living out God's truth and work in this world.  God calls us to love all believers and nonbelievers.  He calls us to be in unity with each other and spirit.

What comes up for me is that I know that while I am in Palestine/Israel, there will be spoken and unspoken conflict and spiritual warfare that goes back many generations.  I believe this is the work of the enemy of generational curses.  I plan to stand in the gap and pray just as Jesus did for everyone that I encounter regardless of their faith, culture and background.  We are all brothers and sisters in Christ, and I am looking to see, hear and empathize with their story to gain an understanding of them personally so that they feel heard by me returning unconditional love to them in hopes that they will see, feel and experience Christ's love for them.  Love covers all, endures all and is the greatest act of kindness that we can give freely to our brothers and sisters in hope of creating peace and unity as Jesus extends to us.  It begins with each one of us and multiplies.

It is my belief and hope that we can defeat the enemy and release the chains of bondage that have cursed many generations.  If we are all committed to forgive quickly, give love, receive love and multiply love unconditionally it would spread rampantly uniting us.  It is love that binds us in unity preventing the enemy from having any strongholds upon us.  The prayer offered to us is:

Pray not for Arab or Jew

For Palestinian or Israeli

But pray rather for ourselves

That we must not divide them in our prayers.

(by Christian Aid based on a prayer by a Palestinian Christian)

 

A scripture verse that was laid upon my heart as I was writing this reflection was "Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." ~ 1 Corinthians 13:7.