The Three-Way Love

Posted on by korgrocker

“Jesus replied, “All who love me will do what I say. My Father will love them, and we will come and make our home with each of them. Anyone who doesn’t love me will not obey me. And remember, my words are not my own. What I am telling you is from the Father who sent me. I am telling you these things now while I am still with you.”
John 14:23-25 NLT

The love of, and obedience to, Jesus leads to a three-way response. We know of course that Jesus loves us, because He demonstrated that through His death at Calvary, where He took onto Himself our sins and instead gave us His righteousness. Jesus also said that if we love Him and are obedient to His commands, then His Father in Heaven will also love us. But Jesus followed this with a remarkable statement – Jesus and His Father will make their home with us. And how else will He do that other than by the Holy Spirit? Earlier we read what Jesus said in John 14:15-17a “If you love me, obey my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, …“. 

Perhaps it is easy to gloss over verses such as Acts 2:38, “Peter replied, “Each of you must repent of your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit”. The four stage process in the initial decision to become a Christian was summarised by Peter into a few words, but working out what “repent of your sins and turn to God” means will take a life time of diligent application. And then we gratefully accept the “gift of the Holy Spirit” without really understanding the ramifications of what this really means. But if Jesus said that he will come and live with us through the Holy Spirit then we had better believe it. To refuse to accept such a gift from God goes against the whole premise of loving Him and being obedient to His commands. 

Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 6:19, “Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself …”. And then we have Romans 12:1, “And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him”. This is serious stuff, having the Holy Spirit live in us, but I suppose some will resent this because they will feel as though they have a policeman living with them 24/7. They will consider the (to them) negative connotations that because the Holy Spirit is with them, they will have to stop doing certain things that they previously enjoyed doing. They perhaps think that there will now be many sins that they enjoy that will become visible to God, although he would have known about them anyway. God sees all. 

But the positive side of having the Holy Spirit dwelling within us is that he will lead us into all truth. When we make a commitment to be obedient to Jesus and love Him with all our hearts, we embark on a process of sanctification, where we start to eliminate all those behaviours that fall into the category of “sin”. So the Holy Spirit helps us at every step, as we listen to His truth.

When we become a Christian, a true believer in the full counsel of God, we find that there are three People loving us and living with us. God the Father, Jesus His Son, and the Holy Spirit. So, in our prayer times, there are three extra People there praying as well. We might think that we are on our own but that cannot be further from the truth. 

Father God. Thank You for the precious gift of the Holy Spirit who is with us all day and every day. We worship You today. Amen.

Why, Jesus?

Posted on by korgrocker

“Soon the world will no longer see me, but you will see me. Since I live, you also will live. … Judas (not Judas Iscariot, but the other disciple with that name) said to him, “Lord, why are you going to reveal yourself only to us and not to the world at large?””
John 14:19, 22 NLT

For the disciples, the picture is building that Jesus will soon be leaving them but they are puzzled  about where He will be going and why it would just be them who would see Him. Of course, they had previously been told about what was going to happen. Matthew 17:22-23, “After they gathered again in Galilee, Jesus told them, “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of his enemies. He will be killed, but on the third day he will be raised from the dead.” And the disciples were filled with grief“. But had Judas forgotten what Jesus had said when he asked Him the question in John 14:22? 

There is little information about the Judas who wasn’t Judas Iscariot. Some think that he was the same man as the disciple referred to as Thaddeus. Others think that he was one of Jesus’ half brothers. But the Holy Spirit nudged John to write down this conversation between Judas and Jesus because it must have been relevant and important. 

Perhaps the thought process in Judas’ mind was to do with the continuation of Jesus’ ministry and its extension into the world outside Israel. Surely, he thought, if Jesus was going to rise from the dead then the impact of this on the world would grab everyone’s attention and lead to the growth in the number of believers. But Jesus also told the story of Lazarus and the Rich Man, and it ends with a conversation between the Rich Man in hell, and Abraham with Lazarus in Heaven. We read this in Luke 16:30-31, “The rich man replied, ‘No, Father Abraham! But if someone is sent to them from the dead, then they will repent of their sins and turn to God.’ “But Abraham said, ‘If they won’t listen to Moses and the prophets, they won’t be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead'”. Isn’t it strange that even when faced with overwhelming evidence, the human response is often to rationalise it away or ignore it, particular if the evidence concerned doesn’t fit in with their world view.

But perhaps the real reason for Judas’ question is contained in the Message translation of today’s verses from John 14:22-24a, “Judas (not Iscariot) said, “Master, why is it that you are about to make yourself plain to us but not to the world?” “Because a loveless world,” said Jesus, “is a sightless world. … “. We pilgrims do indeed live in a “loveless world“, where strife and selfishness abound.

We are salt and light in our families, communities, workplaces, churches, and in any place where we have the opportunity to share the love of God. The people around us stumble around in a dark place where God cannot be seen. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 4:4, “Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God”. We pilgrims are light-bearers bringing light and life to counter the darkness and death of our world. There is nothing more rewarding than seeing the look on someone’s face when they see the “light” for the first time.

Father God. We read in Your Word that we have Your “light shining in our hearts”, something that we are truly grateful for. Amen.

Obedient Love

Posted on by korgrocker

“Those who accept my commandments and obey them are the ones who love me. And because they love me, my Father will love them. And I will love them and reveal myself to each of them.”
John 14:21 NLT

“Accept and obey”, Jesus said. The trouble is, too many people will accept the veracity and appropriateness of His commands, but when it comes to obeying them, it’s a different story. So much of what Jesus taught is counter-cultural and, consequently, life-changing if it is followed. Take for example the Beatitude, “God blesses those who are humble, for they will inherit the whole earth” (Matthew 5:5). The secularists in the workplace will promote the opposite, saying things like, “Those who shout the loudest will reap the rewards”, or, “If you don’t push yourself forward you’ll miss out”.  There is no humility present on the promotion ladder. A bit further on in the Beatitudes, we read, “God blesses those who are persecuted for doing right, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs” Matthew 5:10). Those people with the courage to defy the authorities by standing outside an abortion clinic, doing right by silently praying for those who enter in, are persecuted, arrested and, if the politicians have their way, will soon be incarcerated just because of their prayerful thoughts.

As we read further through the Sermon on the Mount,  we find commandments that are impossible, humanly speaking, to keep. In Matthew 5:21-22 we read, “You have heard that our ancestors were told, ‘You must not murder. If you commit murder, you are subject to judgment.’ But I say, if you are even angry with someone, you are subject to judgment! If you call someone an idiot, you are in danger of being brought before the court. And if you curse someone, you are in danger of the fires of hell”. The Pharisees claimed that they were ok because they hadn’t murdered anyone. Jesus said different. Another thorny area is what Jesus said about judging others. “Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. For you will be treated as you treat others. The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged” (Matthew 7:1-2). And as for lust and divorce … but we won’t go there.

How do we show our love for Jesus by keeping His commandments, not just accepting them? How do we follow all His teaching? Jesus said to His disciples, and as recorded in Matthew 19:26, “Jesus looked at them intently and said, “Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But with God everything is possible”“. In John 14:15 Jesus said, “If you love me, obey my commandments”. But here’s the thing – straight after He said this, He said, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you” (John 14:16). Jesus recognised that in their humanity, the disciples were never going to be able to keep His commandments, so He asked His father to send His indwelling Holy Spirit who would empower His followers to be obedient to all He had said. 

Thankfully, we pilgrims have Someone who is praying for us, as we tramp ever onwards towards our Heavenly goal. Through Jesus’ death and resurrection, we have a Saviour who forgives us as we confess our sins, and as we allow the Holy Spirit to refine our lives day by day. We have a win-win faith because God sacrificed Himself for our salvation. No other religion comes anywhere close to this.

Dear Father. We can only bow before You, the God who saves, in deep gratitude and worship. Amen.

Spiritual Orphans Never

Posted on by korgrocker

“No, I will not abandon you as orphans—I will come to you. Soon the world will no longer see me, but you will see me. Since I live, you also will live. When I am raised to life again, you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.”
John 14:18-20 NLT

The word “orphans”, meaning a vulnerable and parentless young person, is mentioned regularly in the Bible, and usually in the context we read in Psalm 82, “Give justice to the poor and the orphan; uphold the rights of the oppressed and the destitute” (Psalm 82:3). James 1:27 reads, “Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you“. In a society with a low life expectancy, it was commonplace to find a child without a parent and those more fortunate in the society were encouraged to help and support them. But orphans were abused and exploited by unscrupulous men and women, and God warned them of the consequences.

So against this backdrop, Jesus reassured His disciples that He would not abandon them “as orphans”. Jesus had been a spiritual Father to His disciples for the previous three years and they had learned so much about the Kingdom of God. This motley bunch of fishermen, a civil servant, zealots and others had seen and experienced miraculous signs and healings with the Man who claimed to be the Son of God. A Man who regularly pointed to His Father in Heaven but who also warned His friends around Him that soon He was going to leave the world and return to His home in Heaven. But Jesus was concerned for those He was going to leave behind. And the disciples would remember what Jesus had previously said about the way they would be treated, “But beware! For you will be handed over to the courts and will be flogged with whips in the synagogues. You will stand trial before governors and kings because you are my followers. But this will be your opportunity to tell the rulers and other unbelievers about me”Matthew 10:17-18). 

But in today’s verses from John 14, Jesus clearly stated to His disciples that He would soon disappear from the world around them. He could see His trial and death sentence coming, snatching Him away from His friends, but He then reassured them that He would reappear as a living person, alive once again, and soon afterwards. Although an orphan would be left hopeless and helpless by the death of their parents, Jesus promised that this would not happen to His disciples. The events of His death, resurrection and ascension into Heaven, would act as a backdrop to the first Day of Pentecost, where His disciples and others would be gifted with His presence through the Holy Spirit. They were going to be alright, He knew, and His few words of reassurance and comfort would be remembered by them over the dark days ahead.

What about us pilgrims? We have the assurance that we have a Heavenly Father who cares for us. 1 Peter 5:7, “Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you”. That in itself is a reminder that we are not orphans. But we also know that Jesus is interceding for us; Romans 8:34, “Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honour at God’s right hand, pleading for us“. And we are also blessed with God’s presence through the Holy Spirit, the Gift that accompanies our Christian birth. Acts 2:38, “Peter replied, “Each of you must repent of your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit”. So we pilgrims are not spiritual orphans, regardless of our human circumstances, and never will be. Praise be to God!

Dear Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is amazing and mind-blowing to have such a Parent. With deeply humble thanks we worship You today. Amen.

The Indwelling One

Posted on by korgrocker

“If you love me, obey my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you.”
John 14:15-17 NLT

God created man with a physical body and a spirit. We all have these attributes but it is how we consider them that is important. The societies in which we live are full of people making their claims about diets and nutritional foods, all to help us live healthier or longer lives but little attention is paid to the spiritual side of our beings. This is left to the gurus and the yogis, the ministers and the rabbis and imams. But the relationship with God through the Holy Spirit is definitely only appreciated by a minority of people, with even many Christians wary of a contact with the third member of the Trinity. In our secular cultures, the Holy Spirit is generally ignored or avoided.

About the Holy Spirit, Jesus said, “The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognise him”. Why is that, do we think? One answer is that the devil has indeed blinded people’s eyes and senses, and propagated a lie about God. Another reason is that we live in a touchy feely world, where anything intangible or invisible is avoided and ignored, leaving an obscure academic cohort of philosophers to debate such things. But the reality of the presence of the Holy Spirit is denied and ignored.

In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit visited certain people at a time of necessity to empower them for a particular task. For example, we read in Judges 6:34 how the Holy Spirit came upon Gideon, “Then the Spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon with power. He blew a ram’s horn as a call to arms, and the men of the clan of Abiezer came to him”. In 1 Samuel 16:13 we read, “So as David stood there among his brothers, Samuel took the flask of olive oil he had brought and anointed David with the oil. And the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon David from that day on. Then Samuel returned to Ramah”. David was not only anointed with oil, he was anointed with the Holy Spirit as well. In the following verse, we see how the Holy Spirit departed from King Saul, “Now the Spirit of the Lord had left Saul, … “.  

In John 14:17, Jesus also said, about the Holy Spirit, to His disciples,  “But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you”. An incredible verse, with Jesus perhaps saying that His presence and that of the Holy Spirit, were one and the same, but Jesus could see forward to the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came to live in each one of the people present in that upper room, and has been available for every believer ever since. We can see the many occasions in the Acts of the Apostles where the Holy Spirit came to live with believers. 

Sadly, there are those today, who claim to be Christians, but who deny the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. In his book “The Normal Christian Birth”, David Pawson writes about the four factors present in a born again believer. We can also find them in Acts 2:38, “Peter replied, “Each of you must repent of your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit”. We repent of our sins, we believe in the Lord Jesus, we seek and realise baptism in water, and we receive the Gift of, or baptism in, the Holy Spirit. John 1:33, “I didn’t know he was the one, but when God sent me to baptise with water, he told me, ‘The one on whom you see the Spirit descend and rest is the one who will baptise with the Holy Spirit'”.

So, dear fellow pilgrim, have you received the gift of the Holy Spirit? Have you been baptised in the Holy Spirit, as John said of Jesus? Does He dwell within you? If not, then seek God today because the Holy Spirit is waiting at the door of your heart, ready to enter. And He will never leave you and He will lead you into all truth. How do I know? Well, Jesus said so. And Peter continued – Acts 2:39, “This promise is to you, to your children, and to those far away—all who have been called by the Lord our God”. 

Dear Father God. In this moment we reach out to You and receive once again a fresh infilling of Your Spirit. Your Spirit moves within us and changes a monochrome world into a vivid multi-colour world. Thank You. Amen.

The Advocate

Posted on by korgrocker

“If you love me, obey my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you.”
John 14:15-17 NLT

Who is this “Advocate”? The Amplified version of the Bible helps – “And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper (Comforter, Advocate, Intercessor—Counsellor, Strengthener, Standby), to be with you forever—” (John 14:16). The impression emerges that there are insufficient words in the English language to describe who the Advocate is. The Greek word is parakletos, from where we get the word Paraclete, another description of the “Advocate”.

But we know who the “Advocate” is because He is the third Person of the Trinity – the Holy Spirit. And Jesus continued – “He … will never leave you” and “He … leads into all truth”. This is mind blowing! That God would condescend to live within us through the Person of His Spirit, the Holy Spirit, is beyond humbling. And the fact that he will never leave us … Through ever situation we are ever likely to encounter, God is there with us. Perhaps we comfortable Western believers can see how our brothers and sisters in other places in the world can look death in the face and overcome the persecution, the loss of property, the imprisonment and even death. God is with them and He never leaves them.

The Holy Spirit “leads [us] into all truth”. Earlier in John 14 Jesus said that He is the truth, and even though He isn’t with us in person, that truth is still with us. We find that the “truth” is in God’s Word and as Paul wrote to Timothy, “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realise what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). There are many customs in our modern times, many of them with dubious intentions, that don’t appear in the Bible, but it is amazing that there are Holy-Spirit-inspired principles to follow that apply today. For example, mobile phones didn’t exist in Jesus’ day, but we know how to use them in an honourable way through Biblical principles, the Holy Spirit providing us with guidance as we use them. And the Holy Spirit will lead us in our daily lives wherever we find ourselves. 

One of my favourite verses is in Acts 2, embedded in Peter’s amazing sermon following which three thousand people were saved. He described the Holy Spirit as being a Gift to all believers. “Peter replied, “Each of you must repent of your sins and turn to God, and be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). Paul reminded all believers that the Holy Spirit lives within us. “The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you” (Romans 8:11). How can we pilgrims ever refuse this amazing God-gift? Free and powerful, the Holy Spirit will lead us into all truth. No secular philosopher or scientist, atheist or otherwise, can ever make such a claim, as they fumble their way through a dark devil-inspired corridor of ultimate shame, searching for truths that are only found through our amazing God.

Heavenly Father. We praise and worship You, with gratitude for Your heavenly Gift, the Holy Spirit, our Advocate and Comforter. Amen.

Jesus’ Commands

Posted on by korgrocker

“If you love me, obey my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you.”
John 14:15-17 NLT

Jesus said, “If you love me, obey my commandments”. Perhaps we wonder what they are, so, we reach for our Bibles and start to work our way through the Gospels, considering carefully Jesus’ every Word. The first command we find in Matthew 4:17, “From then on Jesus began to preach, “Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near””. A couple of verses on we find, “Jesus called out to them, “Come, follow me, and I will show you how to fish for people!”” (Matthew 4:19). So, from Matthew 4 we have Jesus’ commands to repent of our sins and to follow Him. But when we get to Matthew 5 the enormity of what it means to obey the commands of Jesus starts to dawn. Someone has calculated that there could be as many as three hundred commands that Jesus left us with. By the time we get to the end of the Sermon on the Mount we will be reaching for the anti-depressives. In our human strength it is not possible to know and be obedient to all the commands of Jesus. And in any case, should we try, we would be heading for membership of the ancient order of the Pharisees, who maintained that they were righteous because they obeyed every jot and tittle of the Law of Moses. But we should remember that the commands of Jesus are not just a to-do list; they are an invitation to a relationship with God Himself. 

In 1 Peter 1:16 we read, “For the Scriptures say, “You must be holy because I am holy”“. In Hebrews 12:14 we read, “Work at living in peace with everyone, and work at living a holy life, for those who are not holy will not see the Lord.” Self-explanatory verses, that, combined with Jesus’ command that we obey His commandments, define the pass mark for entering Heaven. 

But just because we find it impossible to obey all Jesus’ commands shouldn’t mean we should just give up. With God everything is possible, as we read in Matthew 19:26, ““Jesus looked at them intently and said, “Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But with God everything is possible””. We understand just how impossible it is for us to keep God’s commandments and how often we fail to do so and can therefore never be righteous before God on our own accord. It is Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross that pays the penalty for our sins, and in return we receive His righteousness. Romans 10:9-10, “If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved”. 

So we pilgrims, with the help and guidance of the Holy Spirit living within us, obey Jesus’ commands. And if we fail and slip up, as we often will, we come again to the Cross in repentance. And in our pilgrimage we become more like Jesus, day by day, command by command.

Dear Lord Jesus. You left us with a legacy of commands and examples for us to follow. But You didn’t leave is on our own to muddle through. We thank You the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, who helps us each and every day. Amen.

Greater Works

Posted on by korgrocker

“I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father. You can ask for anything in my name, and I will do it, so that the Son can bring glory to the Father. Yes, ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it!”
John 14:12-14 NLT

On the face of it, Jesus made a remarkable statement. Could we, as His believers, really do greater things than the Son of God? After all, look at the miraculous healings and signs that Jesus performed. He raised men from the dead, He healed all those who came to Him, He walked on the Sea of Galilee. How can there be anything greater that these?

The crime novels major on a combination of three factors needed to solve a crime – means, motive, and opportunity. And in some ways we can apply these three factors to doing the same works as Jesus. But before we do so, what are the “works” that Jesus was referring to? Our human, materialistic minds immediately jump to something that applies to our natural lives. Jesus said, “You can ask for anything in my name, and I will do it, so that the Son can bring glory to the Father”. But would that new car, or new anything, come to that, bring glory to God? So did Jesus just mean works for God’s Kingdom? Perhaps only spiritual works? 

To look at a New Testament example of a “great work“, we join Peter and John as they enter the Temple for the afternoon prayer meeting. At the gate was a beggar who was unable to walk and he asked them for some money. In Acts 3:6 we read, “But Peter said, “I don’t have any silver or gold for you. But I’ll give you what I have. In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, get up and walk!”” Peter had the means – the name of Jesus Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit. He had the opportunity – an encounter at the Temple gate. He had the motive – to bring glory to God – Acts 3:13, “For it is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—the God of all our ancestors—who has brought glory to his servant Jesus by doing this. This is the same Jesus whom you handed over and rejected before Pilate, despite Pilate’s decision to release him”. 

But as far as we know, the miraculous signs that Jesus performed while He was here with us have never been exceeded. Even His Spirit-filled disciples never fed thousands of people from a packed lunch, or walked across any seas.  One example of “greater works” is possibly how the Apostles and others reached large numbers of people with the Good News of salvation. By the end of the book of Acts, the Gospel had reached most of the Middle East. Jesus only reached the people of Israel, and mainly Jews at that. Perhaps too the answers to prayer falls into the “greater works” category. With the coming of the Holy Spirit, amazing answers to prayers have been realised, as He lives and works through the lives of believers. But the key to performing “greater works” lies with Jesus’ simple requirement – “in my name”. Is what we do or pray for something that aligns with the name of Jesus? And we also must ask the question – does this “great work” bring glory to God?  It isn’t possible to sit down and make a list of “greater works” because it is only through the Holy Spirit’s leading that a “great work” will arise. Sadly, there are many today who believe that the gifts of the Holy Spirit died out with the Apostles. But Jesus didn’t say that that was going to happen, and we pilgrims must always be on the look out for a Holy Spirit inspired opportunity to do a “great work” for God.

Mark’s closing verses in his Gospel read like this. “And then he told them, “Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone. Anyone who believes and is baptized will be saved. But anyone who refuses to believe will be condemned. These miraculous signs will accompany those who believe: They will cast out demons in my name, and they will speak in new languages. They will be able to handle snakes with safety, and if they drink anything poisonous, it won’t hurt them. They will be able to place their hands on the sick, and they will be healed”” (Mark 16:15-18). Can there be a “greater work” than this?

Dear Father God. We pray for opportunities to reach the lost around us. And we pray for the courage to reach out in faith by using the gifts You have given us. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Show Us the Father

Posted on by korgrocker

“Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus replied, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and yet you still don’t know who I am? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father! So why are you asking me to show him to you? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I speak are not my own, but my Father who lives in me does his work through me. Just believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Or at least believe because of the work you have seen me do.”
John 14:8-11 NLT

No-one has ever seen God, but because of humanity we try to conjure in our minds a mental image of who we think God is. Some people picture Him as an old man leaning over the bannisters of Heaven, with a flowing white beard, and an equally flowing white robe. Others see Him as a policeman with a truncheon, ready to beat them over the head if they do wrong. There are flippant stories that God is like the wizard in the film “Wizard of Oz”, standing in front of a machine of cosmic proportions, pushing buttons and pulling levers. Some see God in the natural world around them, in the beauty of a sunset or the complexity of a lily. But in all these mind-pictures, none can even begin to touch the reality of who God is and what He is like.

Of course, we can pick up the Bible and read it, because there we will find so many things about God. A new reader will immediately draw the conclusion that God is never introduced in the Bible – He is always assumed to be there. Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God …”. And that was how John started his Gospel, “In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God”(John 1:1). Speaking here about Jesus, John described his view of God through Jesus, who was in a relationship so intimate with His Father that together they were God. And throughout the Bible, the character and works of God drip from every page. But in all of this Philip was still confused – he just hadn’t “got it”. 

In answer to Philip’s request, “Lord, show us the Father”, Jesus replied, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father”. Of course that was the case, but the Jewish view of God would have been skewed and bolstered by stories of the Exodus from Egypt, the first Passover, the parting of the Red Sea, of earthquakes and fires, of victories in battles, all building a God-image that seemed to be on a scale far greater than the Man standing before Philip.

We pilgrims are children of God, and we know and love a Father who loves us so dearly. John wrote “We love each other because he loved us first” (1 John 4:19). But more than that, Paul wrote, “But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners” (Romans 5:8). Rather than build a picture of a loving God only, there are many other facets of God’s character and it takes a lifetime and then some to really get to know Him. In fact it will take eternity. But before we reach for a pen and paper to write down a picture of God, we should pause. It has already been penned – written down in a Book we call the Bible.

Father God. We will never get to know who You really are in this life, but we know that everything about You is good. We worship You today, our loving Heavenly Father. Amen.

Father and Son

Posted on by korgrocker

“Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. If you had really known me, you would know who my Father is. From now on, you do know him and have seen him!” Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.””
John 14:6-8 NLT

How many times have we looked at a man and a boy, perhaps playing together, kicking a ball around. And then we’re struck by the similarities between them. The same nose, or an identical laugh. Mannerisms that show those around them that they are related. An expression often applied to someone is that they are a “chip off the old block”, meaning that a man is behaving in a way similar to his father, or a woman to her mother. We of course, in these enlightened days, know all about genetics and hereditary factors and understand the process, well, the scientists think they do. Such parent/child similarities can be very positive but there are also negatives, in that a child can take on their parents’ bad characteristics as well. 

There are people who blame their proclivities to sin on their parents, or grandparents. And some Christians would perhaps feel relieved of personal responsibilities when they read Exodus 20:5, “You must not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations of those who reject me“. A generational curse can be used as an excuse. But if we dig deeper we find that this was a specific warning from God to the nation of Israel over idolatry and in any case, we know that sinful behaviour is dealt with through repentance. Blaming our parents for our sin is no excuse before God. Paul wrote in Ephesians 4:21-24, “Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him, throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy”. 

Well, Jesus said that by knowing Him, His disciples would know His Father in Heaven. One distinction between Jesus and any other child is that there were no bad traits. There was no sin in Jesus that could then be attributed to Father God Himself. We of course know and believe that God is good. And that goodness was, and is, displayed through His Son Jesus. Everything Jesus did was 100% in line with His Father’s wishes, and God’s goodness and mercy was displayed everywhere Jesus went. In John 10:32, we read, “Jesus said, “At my Father’s direction I have done many good works. For which one are you going to stone me”“? There were of course times when Jesus confronted and exposed the sinful attitudes and behaviour of some He encountered, particularly the Pharisees. But His anger with them was never sinful. 

We pilgrims are children of God. So, do we display the characteristics of our Heavenly Father? Would someone observing us see anything of God in us? Paul wrote, “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.” For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children. And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering” (Romans 8:14-17). In 1 John 3:9 we read, “Those who have been born into God’s family do not make a practice of sinning, because God’s life is in them. So they can’t keep on sinning, because they are children of God”. And a last word from Romans 8:29, “For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters”.

Do people know by the way we live and what we say and do, that we are children of God? And do they see Jesus, our elder Brother, in our family traits? Hmmm…

Father God. We do indeed call out “Abba, Father” because that is who You are. We praise You today. Amen.