And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.
Comment: I would like to discuss 2 words, which I think are often misunderstood. 1. The word ‘world’, in context, can mean various things. Here it means something like ‘the sum of aberrations committed by people due to their rebellion against the Only One and Living God, their Creator’. Thus worship is good, but bad if given to anyone/idol/thing apart from Jehovah God. Sexual intercourse is good when practiced within the limits of Biblical (God’s) teaching. In summary those people/things which are set against God! 2. The word ‘sanctified’ is not commonly used or understood these days. It is a word which has nuances of several words that we do understand, including all of them – set apart, purified, freed from sinning. That is living in a way that we were made for in God’s initial plan.
Prayer: Deliver me from any smell of ‘self-righteousness’, O God.
As I read it! 