Parts I and II can be found here and here, respectively.
The full form of the Jesus Prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner,” incorporates at least six biblical promises. These are:
1. Romans 10:9 — If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. (cf. John 6:40; Romans 10:10-13)
2. 1 Corinthians 12:3 — No one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit. (cf. John 15:26)
3. 1 John 5:1 — Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. (cf. Matthew 16:16-17)
4. 1 John 4:15 — Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. (cf. Romans 8:16017; 1 John 2:23, 5:10)
5. 1 John 1:9 — If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (cf. Luke 18:14)
6. John 14:14 — If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. (cf. John 14:13, 15:16, 16:23-24)
On the Third Promise
Belief in Jesus as the Christ requires a supernatural act of God vivifying the soul to this truth. It is the necessary second birth, without which we cannot see the Kingdom of God. As Jesus teaches: “Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again’” (John 3:7). For, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). This rebirth is so important, but what does it entail? It entails the recognition of Jesus as your life. Not that He is merely important to your life, a central part of your life, or even that He is the purpose of your life, but that He Himself is your life. As He declares: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live” (John 11:25). Notice three elements in that verse: (1) Jesus is the life, (2) those who believe in Him, (3) will live. In other words, since belief receives Jesus, and Jesus is the life, to receive Jesus is to receive the life. He is and becomes in experience the substance of the Christian’s life. One is thus born again, regenerated by the life that is Jesus Christ; one is born of God, what He also declares is being “born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). This is the context and substance of that most famous of bible verses: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). That is why St. John the Forerunner can say: “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him” (John 3:36). Notice how wrath is said to remain or abide on those who do not believe. It is thus not that God punishes those who do not believe in Christ by depriving them of life; it is that (1) Christ Himself is eternal life, (2) believing in Him is receiving He who is Himself eternal life, (3) not believing in Christ means not having Him, which means (4) those do not believe do not have eternal life. What is rather the case is that divine wrath remains on those who do not believe. Christ is the instrument of deliverance from wrath, as St. Paul teaches: “Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God” (Romans 5:9), “Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thessalonians 1:10). This is why the promise is so especially precious and incomparable, for it is the divine promise of the eternal life we hope for from the bottom of our hearts. This life is Jesus Himself, and is received by faith in such a way that one is a new creation, for “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
