John 17:4

John 17:4 says, I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.  Though Jesus had not yet gone to the cross, He recognized that it was immanent that He would be crucified.  He was going to complete the work, and part of that had been teaching the disciples and witnessing to the world.  This would be such a great statement for every Christian to be able to make at the end of their life here on earth.  At the end, if we could say we have completed the work that God gave us that He might be glorified. Jesus had a purpose on earth, mainly to make salvation available, and He did it that the Father might be glorified.  We need to live the same way.  Verse five adds, Jesus said, And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thy own self with the glory I had with thee before the world was.  Jesus gave up the glory of heaven to come the earth as a mortal man, but now, as His work was being finished, He was asking the Father to return Him to His former glory.  We notice again the eternal nature of Jesus.  He was before the world existed. The only glory we can be restored to is the glory of God.  We cannot save ourselves or others spiritually.  Only Jesus, the Christ, can do this, and by that He is indeed glorified by the Father.  Verse six continues, I have manifested thy name to the men thou gavest me out of the world: Thine they were, and thou gavest them to me; and they have kept thy word.  The disciples were following Jesus because God had given them to Him by their faith.  Jesus taught them Who He was, and they would spread that knowledge of Christ to all the world.  As followers of Jesus today, we have been given to Him by faith in the salvation He made available.  This is nothing we do of ourselves, but it is by the faith that God gives us.  As the early disciples did, we need to keep God's word.  This doesn't mean that they never failed.  It only means that when they did, they asked for forgiveness and strength and continued to witness for Christ.  If we are His followers, we must acknowledge our own inability to save ourselves, ask God's forgiveness, and then continue to work for Him.  It is my understanding that if we do not ask God for forgiveness, but simply decide we will do better on our own without bothering God, then we have become our own savior.  I personally do not see how this can happen.  We must be willing to humble ourselves and admit that we are incapable of reaching God by our own abilities.