Kept by the Power of His Name

“Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me – so that they may be one as we are one.” (Jn 17:11)

When Jesus was facing the end of His life He prayed a prayer to His Heavenly Father.  The line above is Jesus’ request that we be kept by the Father; protected.  He gives the reason for this protection as “that they may be one as we are one.”  Being one, or one flesh, is the term God uses for a man to be united to his wife (Gen 2:24). It is an intimate union where two people know each other’s hearts and minds, and eventually walk in agreement.  Jesus had just told the disciples that “I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” (Jn 14:11).  This oneness, then, is spiritual.

As a husband protects his bride, so the Father protected Jesus.  When we are His bride, God protects us also.  You might say that you do not feel protected, for there are abundant trials on this earth.  However, to be kept by the power of His name is to love God and be kept by Him as His bride.  All the works we do in His name are unable to keep us in our hour of trial.  Our love relationship with Jesus and His Father will keep us.

Sometimes the greatest gap that forms between 2 lovers is indifference. The heart can grow selfish, cold . . . and eventually, hard.  In the book of Hebrews we read this phrase several times; “Today, when you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts . . . “ (Heb 3:15).  People who love each other talk to each other.  Intimacy and hearing cannot be separated.  The minute we start thinking God no longer cares about us, we will be tempted to harden our hearts, and to stop listening.  The greatest test of love is to desire God’s presence in the very trials that only He can deliver us from.

Illness, rejection, and busyness with work will dry the love out of our hearts.  But God desires to pour the rain of His love onto our lives and heal us.  He always cares about us.  God loves us.  His protection isn’t from trials, and doesn’t eliminate our enemies.  God’s protection “keeps” us in the midst of trials and spiritual warfare so that our hearts won’t suffer defeat.  His desire is that we all become “one”, kept by love.