In the game of football, the offensive line has one major job – protect the quarterback. They need to allow him the time and freedom to do what he is trained to do: hand the ball off to the running back, throw to a receiver, or run the ball down the field himself.
That’s what our prayers do for ourselves and our spouse. Prayers build a wall around our spouse’s heart so that Satan cannot break through the line and attack him or her. When we pray this way, it allows our spouse to do what he or she is trained by God to do and to do it confidently and safely.
The prayer from the prayer life of Jesus which we will consider in this study is one Jesus prayed in the upper room, before He led His disciples into the Garden of Gethsemane, where He also prayed, which we’ll study next month.
JESUS PRAYS FOR HIMSELF – 17:1-5:
Jesus is about to leave this world of sin and return to the Father and He asks for God’s protection as he approaches that death.
Pray for your spouse’s safety.
JESUS PRAYS FOR HIS IMMEDIATE DISCIPLES – 17:6-19:
17:6-12 – While Jesus was with them, He kept them in the “name” or “Truth” of God and He guarded them; He protected them. Everyone except Judas Iscariot, the Son of Perdition, whom the Scriptures had predicted would turn His back on the Messiah (Psa. 41:9; 109:8).
Pray for your spouse’s health. You pray for their safety; pray also for their physical health. John stated in 3 John 2, that he prayed his audience would be in good health, just as their soul prospers.
17:13-14 – Jesus prayed that God would protect His disciples from the impact that the world can have on them – by stealing joy from their hearts. Jesus is praying that His disciples will have “joy made full in themselves.” Here, the joy is closely connected to having the word of God.
Pray for your spouse to be protected from negative thinking, especially when it comes to God or Christ or their word. If he or she is struggling with a certain health problem, it can also steal the joy and hope from their heart. Pray for him or her, specifically that God will protect them from Satan stealing the joy of life from their heart.
17:15-16 – Jesus asked the Father to “keep” the disciples from “the evil one.” His disciples do not belong to the world, just as Jesus did not belong to the world. Our citizenship is in heaven.
So we should pray that our spouse can be protected from his or her own unique temptations.
17:17-19 – Jesus sent the disciples into the world to continue sharing the “name” of God and Jesus sanctified Himself so that He could glorify God and be the instrument of salvation for mankind and for the sake of the disciples, that they could be sanctified in the truth.
Pray for your spouse’s sanctification, that they would hear the word and obey the word and live the word in their own lives. That’s how we can pray for our spouse’s protection from Satan.
JESUS PRAYED FOR ALL DISCIPLES – 17:20-26:
This last paragraph extends the prayer of Jesus to the protection of all of us…
Jesus wants us to be with Him so we can see the glory He had with the Father before the world was. Jesus, through the teachings of the apostles, has made Himself known so that God’s love, the love with which He loved the Son, can be in us and Christ may dwell in us.
Pray your spouse will be protected in the love of God.
Pray for your spouse’s protection: physically, emotionally, from discouragement, from temptations, and especially spiritually.
Paul Holland
