JOHN 17
This is one of the rarest passages in the Bible.  It is John being allowed to curl back the invisibility of God so that we might stand in the enclosure of the Trinity.
  This chapter doesn't use sanctification, justification, election, predestination or any of the $10 words we might expect of so holy, so rare a Word of God.  It doesn't use an OT reference.

  Jesus says, 'I come to Thee, I was with them, I kept them, I am no more in the world.'  Simple words without a parable, without stained glass or metaphors of light or water or bread.  There are no specific instructions as we find in the Law.  Here the Spirit of God has inspired John to conceal as much as he reveals in such few words.
  Yet the chapter is rich in Biblical themes of Father and only-begotten Son, belief in God, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, and God's glory. While we are not taken through the OT step by step as in Peter's sermons or the Letter to Hebrews, if we put the details of John 17 down for a moment and step back, we might realize what is being conveyed.

  First, God in us and we in Him.
  This is an uncovering of God.  As the Lord revealed Himself to Moses on the mountain, as Jesus showed Philip the Father, so we are allowed to 'see' the relationship with the Father and Son.  John will say in 1 John 1.3--what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, that you also may have fellowship with us and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.
   Now here in John 17, we see how Jesus is the Son of the Father.  It is a relationship of giving.  Jesus says--Now they have come to know that everything Thou has given Me is from Thee, John 17.7.  What the Father has as creator, He gives to the Son as redeemer.  He says this when He says--the world which Thou gave Me I have given to them and they received, and truly understood that I came forth from Thee and they believed that Thou did send Me, John 17.8.

  If God abides in us and we in Him, chapter 17 is telling us that God is much more in our lives than we might realize.  We often do not 'see' Him, but He is just beyond our invisibility, taking care of us, loving us, being sovereign in the world for us as we are for Him.  God is not the oblong blur of some religions or the philosophical arguer of the ancient Greeks or the dictator of ancient Rome.
  Paul says--all things have been created through Him and for Him.  And He is before all things and in Him all things hold together, Col. 1.16.  He is all in all because all created things have some of His glory.  That glory was given to the Son, who has given it to us as His body, the church, John 17.22.

  When the disciples of John ask Jesus, Are you the expected One in Matthew 11.5, He says--Go and report to John the things which you see and hear...the blind receive sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear and the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them.
  All these things the people saw.  As the Father gave to the Son, He now gives to us. The NT does not ask us to go into the church as often as it declares that we would go out into the world.  John says this--As Thou did send Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world, John 17.18.

  We might say that the essence of Christianity is that we belong to the Son as He belongs to the Father, that we would glorify Him.

  Second, we can realize from this chapter how much Christianity is a gift from God.  The Father gives authority to the Son, 17.2, the Father gave the disciples to the Son, 17.6, the words which the Father gave to the Son, He has given to men, 17.8, and the glory which the Father gave to the Son, He has given to men, 17.22.  Over and over, it's a gift.

  World religions aren't like this.  Most deities keep accounts over men or the gods cannot be known  Here the Spirit of God is revealing through the words John wrote that the Father gives to the Son and the Son gives to men and women.  It is more like a family relationship than a world religion.  John will say later in his life that God is love.

  This relationship of giving is perfectly expressed in Acts 3.6 where a lame man cries out to Peter and John as they walk by.
  Peter then says--Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do possess I give to you.  In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene--walk!
  It is a gift.  The man was not wealthy, he was not a Pharisee, a reader of the scrolls or a priest or government official.  But he asked Peter and John, and the gift which they were given--that the lame shall walk--they give to this man.

  A gift cannot be repaid, but it can be passed along.  That's our gratitude, our capacity to love God.  Freely we have received, freely give.  No wonder God is love.