Daily Archives: April 24, 2014

Friendship with God

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FRIENDSHIP WITH GOD

“‘If you love me, keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever — the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you know Him, for He lives with you and will be in you.'” John 14:15-17 NIV.

Talk about intimacy! Jesus described the potential of a relationship with the Trinity that could not possible get more intimate.

What is intimacy? Our minds immediately link intimacy with some kind of physical relationship, don’t they? Cuddling, kissing, even intercourse! But that is not necessarily being intimate. Intimacy simply means fully knowing and being fully known. This is the relationship that exists in the Trinity — no secrets, nothing hidden, no dishonesty, being absolutely open and transparent.

Intimacy in the human sense involves both risk and trust; risk because it means opening up to the other person and risking betrayal; and trust because it believes that, no matter what it reveals, the other person will treasure and hold sacred whatever you reveal of yourself.

Jesus offered His disciples and He offers us a relationship like that with us, but it has a condition attached — fulfilling our side of what cements unity — obedience.

“You are my friends if you do what I command you.” John 15:14 NIV.

However, this is not the subservient kind of obedience that does what it is told because, if not, there are consequences. This kind of obedience is built on the love that wants to protect the oneness between us and the Master by not doing anything that would go against what He values.

He offers us, mere humans, the highest form of friendship with Him — friendship with God, mind you, the God who created and rules the universe through the power of His Word; this God said that He would call us friends, just like Abraham was His friend, and like David was a man after His heart — on one condition

“The Lord is friend to those who fear Him. He teaches them His covenant.” Psalm 25:14 NLT.

“Come, my children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from telling lies. Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.” Psalm 34:11-14 NIV.

Jesus promised the priceless gift of the Holy Spirit to those whose love for Him is strong enough to do whatever He requires so that we will not break His heart, not to those who “receive Him so that they can go to heaven when they die!” Like the intimacy He had with His Father, He offers us an intimacy that understands His heart and co-operates with Him to carry out His will on earth through prayer.

“I will ask the Father…” Was this something that Jesus decided on the spur of the moment? I don’t think so. This was part of the plan from the beginning. The first pair lost the intimacy of the Holy Spirit when they disobeyed. Jesus bought back that honour for us by paying the price for our sin, but He still had to co-operate with the Father by asking Him to do what He had already planned to do.

This is the essence of true prayer; not bringing our “grocery lists” of requests to God and wanting “delivery” of the items by next Tuesday, but by getting to know the heart of the Father through intimacy with Him, and expressing our oneness with Him through prayer as we learn what He has already planned to do and then asking Him to do it.

“And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” John 13:13 NIV. This is not a blank cheque that will get you anything your heart may desire. This is an invitation to share in the glorious work of rebuilding God’s kingdom on earth by hearing the heart of the Father and asking according to the name (the nature and will) of the Son.

Greater Works

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GREATER WORKS 

“Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask anything in my name and I will do it.” John 14:12-14 NIV.

At face value there was nothing unusual about Jesus’ statement that His disciples would do greater things than He was doing. This was what was expected of the disciples of rabbis who had authority. They would take their disciples beyond where they were.

But there was something more than what was expected of the ordinary disciples of a rabbi with authority. This was Jesus speaking, not just any rabbi. “Going to the Father” had greater implications than just dying and was the key to the “greater things”.

1. Going to the Father meant that He was returning to the one who sent Him. Jesus was on a mission to the earth. He did not come into existence at His conception.

“He was with God in the beginning” John 1:2 NIV.

2. He had come from the Father to accomplish something and He was returning to the Father because He had completed what He had come to do.

“Therefore, when Christ came into the world, He said: ‘Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; with burn offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. Then I said, ‘Here I am — it is written about me in the scroll — I have come to do your will, my God'” Hebrews 10:5-7 NIV.

3. The Father had sent Him to the earth to reveal Him to His people. He had become distorted in the minds of His people through centuries of rabbinic study and interpretation which had overlaid their ancient Scriptures with layers and layers of rules and additions until He was no longer recognizable as the God who revealed Himself to His people through the prophets.

“In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things and through whom also He made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being…” Hebrews 1:1-3a NIV.

4. He came to restore what was broken at the Fall. Adam and Eve broke the unity between themselves and God through their disobedience, and brought the whole universe into disrepair. They incurred an unpayable debt which Jesus came to pay to restore them to unity and fellowship with the Father so that they could fulfil the Father’s will.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.” 2 Corinthians 5:17-18 NIV.

“For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.” Romans 8:20, 21 NIV.

5. He came to create a body (the church) of which He is the head, to reproduce Himself on the earth and to bring heaven to earth by the way they live. Through His death which provides forgiveness of sins and reconciliation to the Father, He is building a family of sons and daughters who are just like Him to represent Him to the world and to do the works He did and much more.

How can we do greater things than He did? Perhaps not greater in nature but greater in volume because, wherever His children are, He is by His Spirit in them and He is able to spread His message of God’s kingdom by multiplying Himself through them across the entire globe.