A Gospel-shaped meditation – Those You Have Given Me.
I’ve been sitting with a line Jesus prayed, and it keeps drawing me back, not just emotionally, but theologically. “Thank You, Father, for those You have given me.” – John 17:6, 9, 24.
That sentence doesn’t stand on its own. At first glance it sounds gentle. Almost tender and in reality, it is both of those things. However, It sits inside a much bigger conversation Jesus was having all the way through the Gospel of John, and if you’re interested then why not join me in this conversation, meditation and exploration.
“Thank You, Father, for those You have given me.” – John 17:6, 9, 24.
Nothing Jesus says like this is accidental. Earlier in the Gospel, Jesus makes a statement that quietly dismantles our assumptions about how faith begins. That word draws sounds soft in English. But John’s word isn’t soft at all. The word is ἑλκύω (helkō) – used in John 6:44 and it is better and more correctly defined as – drag, to haul, to pull with force. It’s the word used for dragging a heavy net of fish to shore or hauling someone into the street.
It means:
- to drag.
- to haul.
- to pull with force.
- to move something unable or unwilling to move itself.
It’s the same word John uses elsewhere for:
- dragging a net full of fish to shore – John 21:6, 11
- dragging Paul into the marketplace – Acts 16:19
No one gently invites a net full of fish to swim onto land.
So, when Jesus says: “No one can come to me unless the Father… helkō him.” – John 6:44 He is not describing persuasion. He is describing divine intervention.
Faith doesn’t initiate the relationship. Faith doesn’t even cooperate at the start. So, Jesus isn’t describing persuasion – He’s describing intervention.
Which tells us something crucial – “Faith doesn’t initiate the relationship.” It never has.
The starting point is when God acts by His Spirit, and through the power of the gospel.
- God speaks first – saying “Let it be.”
- God convicts first.
- God awakens first.
- God drags the dead toward life.
Not against a renewed will, but before there even was a will. Dead people don’t need encouragement – They need resurrection.
And this is exactly where Paul later says the same thing, just in different words. Ephesians 2:8–9 – “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God not by works, so that no one can boast.”
That verse doesn’t say grace responds to faith. It says grace produces it. Faith is the response – and even that response is the gift of God.
- So, faith isn’t the lever that moves God.
- Faith is what happens when God has already moved.
- It’s the breath taken after life has been given.
- The eyes opening after light has broken in.
That’s why John never treats faith as an achievement. And why Paul strips it of all boasting.
- Grace goes first.
- Always.
Then, later in the story, Jesus stops teaching and starts praying. No crowds. No illustrations. Just the Son speaking to the Father:
“They were Yours; You gave them to me.” – John 17:6
“I pray for those You have given me.” – John 17:9
“Father, I want those You have given me to be with me where I am.” – John 17:24
What Jesus explained publicly in teaching, He now acknowledges privately in prayer. The same people the Father dragged to the Son in John 6:44 are the people the Son thanks the Father for in John 17:6, 9, 24.
Doctrine thus becomes devotion.
And that’s where this lands for me. Because it changes how I see people.
- The people I pray for.
- The people I walk with.
- The people entrusted to my care.
They are not here because I was persuasive enough. They are not here because they figured it out. They are here because by grace they were saved, and even their faith was God’s gift to them.
- The Gospel didn’t wait for readiness.
- The Spirit didn’t wait for permission.
God acted.
So, when I pray now, I don’t start with anxiety or strategy. I start where Jesus started: “Father, thank You for those You have given me.” – John 17:6, 9, 24 And my ongoing prayer is that you Spirit of God:
- Help me steward, not control.
- Help me trust what You’ve already begun.
- Help me remember that faith is not fragile human effort but living proof that You have already dragged someone out of death and into life, by grace alone.
And suddenly the gospel feels even more hopeful.
Why?
Because if salvation is by grace, and faith itself is God’s gift, then no one I’m praying for is beyond reach.
- Grace goes first.
- God goes first.
- Life comes first.
And faith – real, living faith – saving faith follows.
God Bless You in Your Journey of Faith.
Albert
www.youtube.com/c/AlbertMMartinWWCM