In contrast, Jesus is never selfish, nor are His prayers selfish. It is true however that he prayed for Himself. In His prayer, recorded in John 17, He begins by praying for what concerns Himself.
Even here the request is never for Jesus' interests as opposed to those of others. He asked to be glorified in order that He might, in turn, glorify the Father. These requests are not improper or even especially magnified.
We have a record of one petition concerning Himself, but for others. There are five verses in the first section of this prayer where Jesus is praying on His own behalf, but there are twenty-one verses in the next two sections in which Jesus prays for His disciples and for all who would inevitably follow them in faith.
Glory is, or should be, reflective and we could say reflexive as well. After Nebuchadnezzar's humiliation, God re-glorified him, but this time the king glorified God in return. Glory is one of those many examples of our reciprocal relationship with God. Turn to John 17 and we will see that Christ mentions this reciprocity. I will read this from the Amplified Version for emphasis:
We have already seen that God is the source of all our glory, but we are to reflect that glory and not hide it in a veil or, as we will see, under a basket. I want to read II Corinthians 3:18 again, but this time from the Phillips Paraphrase just to pick up the emphasis that he provides:
We are familiar with this as being the real Lord's Prayer. The prayer that Jesus prayed just before He was taken by the Romans, put through the trial, and then crucified.
