Heavenly Father You have blessed me to know a few very good and Godly men. I praise You for bringing them into my life. Today, I would like to honor a man I dearly loved and enjoyed my time with him, his name is Jerry Tomlin. He is now gone to heaven to be with You. I praise You for getting to know him, serve with him, and enjoy life with him.
Holy Spirit I pray You bring comfort to my friends who have lost their father. They are now orphans in this world but they are not forsaken for they know You as their heavenly Father. I pray they will always have fond memories of their father as I and my wife do.
Holy Spirit I praise You for allowing me to see what a good man can be. He was not perfect but he always demonstrated love. He was not rich, but he enjoyed life to the fullest. He was not a man of fame, yet all who knew him knew of his humor, love, and dedication to You and to his family. Jerry served our country through the Marine Corps and was not saved until well into his adulthood. He worked at Youth Camps and other church functions while working for a tire company. Jerry was always quick to give a hug, a smile, and a joke. He could laugh with the best of them. He could also pray, though rarely in public. He believed in Your Son and wanted others to believe too.
Holy Spirit as I age, I hope to be a good Godly man for others as Jerry was. I pray that I can show humility, love, and mercy as he did. Let me pick up the mantle to be the next in my generation. I praise You for men like Jerry who have had an influence on my life as a teen and as an adult.
I am reminded of Jesus’ last prayer for all of us, He said, Now I’m returning to you. I’m saying these things in the world’s hearing so my people can experience My joy completed in them. I gave them Your word; the godless world hated them because they didn’t join the world’s ways. Just as I didn’t join the world’s ways. I’m not asking that you take them out of the world but that you guard them against the Evil One. They are no more defined by the world than I am defined by the world. Make them holy—consecrated—with the truth; Your word is consecrating truth. In the same way that you gave me a mission in the world, I give them a mission in the world. I’m consecrating myself for their sakes so they’ll be truth-consecrated in their mission. I’m praying not only for them but also for those who will believe in me because of them and their witness about me. The goal is for all of them to become one heart and mind—Just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, So they might be one heart and mind with us. Then the world might believe that you, in fact, sent me. The same glory you gave me, I gave them, so they’ll be as unified and together as we are—I in them and you in me. Then they’ll be mature in this oneness, and give the godless world evidence that you’ve sent me and loved them in the same way you’ve loved me. Father, I want those you gave me to be with me, right where I am, so they can see my glory, the splendor you gave me, having loved me long before there ever was a world. Righteous Father, the world has never known you. But I have known you, and these disciples know that you sent me on this mission. I have made your very being known to them—who you are and what you do—and continue to make it known so that your love for me might be in them exactly as I am in them. (Amen) John 17:13-26, the Message