¹² “While I was with them, I was keeping them in Your name which You have given Me; and I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled.”

Like a farewell speech, Jesus outlines His final requests to His Father, almost like His dying requests. His ministry of teaching is about done, all that is left is His great and final task of dying as a substitutionary sacrifice for the world. Of course His death is not the end of the story, it is the transition into the next great phase of God’s glory being displayed in the world, a transition of God’s program from one of life under the Law of Moses, to life under grace. In this transitionary time, Jesus confers with His Father about the handoff of responsibilities. In particular, the handoff at this juncture of His divine communication has to do with the safety of the disciples whom He is leaving behind.

What love and care He has for the eleven, and as we see later in this prayer, also for those who will believe through their testimony. That includes all believers of all time. Jesus is eminently concerned for us all who have left everything to follow Christ. While He was physically on the earth two thousand years ago, for about three and half years, He protected the twelve disciples, as John records, by “keeping” them and He “guarded them.” These were His intimates, the ones who stayed with Him when all others left (see John 6:66). He had chosen them (John 6:70) and built into their lives through the constant in-person discipling, training. This was of utmost concern to Him. Although He taught the multitudes, He healed many of their ailments, He proclaimed “whosever will,” it was these men in the Upper Room that He was most concerned about.

On an organizational level, modern management gurus would say that a CEO needs to give the most time to developing his top leaders. But that is nothing new—Jesus adapted this mode of operation long ago. But the organization Jesus was building was not a business venture. No. He was building the church of God, the vehicle through which God would reach the world with the message of Christ. The person of Jesus Christ was about to give way to the “Body of Christ,” the description by which the Church is best known. As a physical man there were natural limitations to His reach. But for the corporate body of all believers, the reach would become exponential. And Jesus was discussing with His Father this transition. These men, and by extension we believers today, would become the primary task force for reaching the world.

Lord, thank You for protecting me as I strive to be Your ambassador today.