“Father, I want these whom you have given me to be with me where I am. Then they can see all the glory you gave me because you loved me even before the world began! O righteous Father, the world doesn’t know you, but I do; and these disciples know you sent me. I have revealed you to them, and I will continue to do so. Then your love for me will be in them, and I will be in them.”
John 17:24-26 NLT
Jesus said in His prayer that He had revealed God, His Father, to His disciples, and was going to continue to do so. But how could they see the magnificence of all that God is in a human being, even though this was Jesus, God’s Son? To get our mind around all of this we have to look at Jesus’ mission and ministry in its entirety. Miracle after miracle, people healed, teaching about the Kingdom of God, demonstrations of love and compassion, the impact of Jesus’ ministry was huge, not just to the people He met, His native countrymen the Jews, but also to countless people ever since. But there was one factor underpinning all that Jesus did, and we find that in John 5:30. He said, “I can do nothing on my own. I judge as God tells me. Therefore, my judgment is just, because I carry out the will of the one who sent me, not my own will“. All that Jesus did on Planet Earth was in accordance with His Father’s will. It was God’s plan for Jesus to be executed, for Him to be a willing sacrifice that defeated the devil and provided salvation for all who believed in Him. The challenge for the disciples was to see the will of God manifested in Jesus. Jesus said, and as recorded in John 10:37-38, “Don’t believe me unless I carry out my Father’s work. But if I do his work, believe in the evidence of the miraculous works I have done, even if you don’t believe me. Then you will know and understand that the Father is in me, and I am in the Father”. Jesus’ mission was obvious to those with open eyes. Even a Jewish religious leader, Nicodemus, could see a glimmer of the truth, as recorded in John 3:2. “After dark one evening, he came to speak with Jesus. “Rabbi,” he said, “we all know that God has sent you to teach us. Your miraculous signs are evidence that God is with you””.
There was nothing special about Jesus’ appearance to set Him apart from His peers. He was an ordinary man, who grew up in a Jewish home just as any other boy of His times did. Schooled and then apprenticed to His natural father’s profession as a carpenter. A good worker who reached the age of thirty and then who laid it all down to become an itinerant rabbi. In His home town of Nazareth He preached in the local synagogue one Sabbath, and the people were happy with what He said. We read in Luke 4:22, “Everyone spoke well of him and was amazed by the gracious words that came from his lips. “How can this be?” they asked. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son””? But as soon as He said something they didn’t like, they wanted to kill Him – the account is in Luke 4. There is no record of Jesus speaking there again, and soon after this event He went to live for a time in Capernaum, a town near Nazareth. Jesus, an ordinary Man but with an extraordinary mission.
Sadly today, most people in our Western societies fail to make the connection between Father and Son. In fact, they reject the Bible and its Godly content, consigning it to a corner of their bookcases with other books they never read. They may know about Jesus, but the only connection they have with Him is through making His name an expletive. And even more sadly, there are those who claim to be followers of Christ, but who reject some of His teachings because they are inconvenient or are at odds with their own particular ideologies. There was even a senior clergyman, who claimed to be a Christian in the Church of England who said that Jesus’ resurrection was a “conjuring trick with bones”. He didn’t believe in much of the Bible at all!
So, have we pilgrims had a revelation of God? There is only one place where we can find Him and that is in His Word and as revealed by the Holy Spirit. The books of Genesis and Revelation and all between, are a rich mine of spiritual nuggets exposing the character of God and revealing Himself to all who search after the truth. But just as a man and woman will get to know each other by spending time together, so the only way we can find out anything about our Heavenly Father is by reading about Him in His Word. There are no short cuts. No instant solutions. But through His love and grace, God will meet us in the pages of our Bibles. He loves it when we come to Him, like a small child bringing a book and sitting on His knee. And as He turns the pages with Him, we will find our God revealed.
Heavenly Father. All that we need for life we will find in Your Word. Please open the Scriptures before us, to reveal who You are in all Your glory. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Being a Pilgrim 