Introduction from Michael Cassidy
“If my book The Church Jesus Prayed For can in even modest measure challenge the Lord’s people in many places to strive in new ways after the church Jesus prayed for, narrated in John 17, I will feel rewarded. Most assuredly does this tired old planet need this church Jesus prayed for as never before. As to how the book may be read, studied, or used in groups, please note the suggestions laid out at the beginning of the book. There seemed to me to emerge ten key ideas or “marks” which our Lord wants to characterise His Church.
“These are:
- Truth – as coherence with the relational and factual realities of God and His world.
- Holiness – as human character conforming in measure to the divine.
- Joy – as being Jesus Himself and given from His heart to those who love and obey Him.
- Protection – as deliverance from both the power of evil supernaturalism and the ways of the world.
- Mission – as Christian labours carried out in the manner in which Jesus fulfilled His own.
- Prayer/Prayerfulness – as constant communication with and dependence on the Father.
- Unity – as exists within the Trinity and to be striven for and maintained by Jesus’ disciples.
- Love – as the active and bonding emotion between the Persons of the Godhead and the supreme requirement of us, His disciples.
- Power – as released in us by the Son through the Holy Spirit.
- Glory – as reflective of the radiant character and multi-coloured dimensions of God shining through.”
Read: The Church Jesus Prayed For, Michael Cassidy
Listen to: The Church Jesus Prayed For 1, Michael Cassidy
Listen to: The Church Jesus Prayed For 2, Michael Cassidy
Listen to: The Church Jesus Prayed For (Worst and Best), Michael Cassidy