Monthly Archives: October 2021

FROM GRIEF TO JOY

Bible Study, ,

FROM GRIEF TO JOY

“Jesus went on to say, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then, after a little while you will see me.’  At this, some of His disciples said to one another, ‘What does He mean by saying, “In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me,” and “Because I am going to the Father”?’ They kept asking, ‘What does He mean by “a little while”? We don’t understand what He is saying.'” John 16:17-18 NIV. 

As fully aware of His impending suffering and death on the cross as Jesus was, so unaware the disciples were. They had consistently shut their minds to what He had told them was to happen to Him at the hands of the religious leaders. Not even the Passover meal they had just eaten which He had fleshed out to point to His sacrifice as God’s Passover lamb, had alerted them to the ordeal He was shortly to face.

Now the time was almost on Him. Not even the darkness of the olive grove could shield Him from the motley army that was gathering in the city to arrest Him and drag Him off to the Sanhedrin for the mockery of a trial. How desperately He wanted to reassure His disciples that His death was a temporary interruption that would issue in very far-reaching results for them and for the world.

Had they heeded His words on the many occasions He had told them that He would be killed and would rise again on the third day, what He was now telling them would have been quite easily understood. Going away, as in death, where they would not be able see Him in His human body…and returning to them, as in a resurrection body, where they would once again see Him…for us is all so simple, but for them a complete mystery.

During His earthly ministry, they had seen Him raise the dead more than once. Only a few days previously, Lazarus had walked out of the tomb after his body had already begun to decay! But Jesus was there in person, doing the miracles by a word or a touch. To understand and believe that He would die and rise again was too much to accept and so His words sounded like nonsense to them.

“Jesus saw that they wanted to ask Him about this, so He said to them, ‘Are you asking one another what I meant when I said, “In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me’?

“‘Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born, she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So, with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.'” John 16:19-22 NIV.

The resurrection of Jesus is the hope of every person who believes in Him. For the disciples, it was His death that brought them inconsolable grief because they thought it was the end of the road for them. But after the grief came the joy and a joy that would never leave them because their Master was alive and He could never die again.

As human beings in a fallen world, we are all subject to the pain of physical and emotional suffering and loss but the promise of God’s Word is that there is a resurrection and there is a hope. After grief comes joy. Unlike the experience of people in the world who may participate in the passing pleasures the world offers, like the world in its present state, the world’s pleasures are as transient as wild flowers in the field.

“The life of mortals is like grass; they flourish like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.” Psalm 103:15, 16.

“The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.”  1 John 2:17.

“For His anger lasts only a moment, but His favour lasts a lifetime; weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.” Psalm 30:5.

As for the disciples, so for us, because Jesus is alive forever, we have the everlasting hope that our weeping will be turned to joy.

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

FROM GRIEF TO JOY

Bible Study, ,

FROM GRIEF TO JOY

“Jesus went on to say, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then, after a little while you will see me.’  At this, some of His disciples said to one another, ‘What does He mean by saying, “In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me,” and “Because I am going to the Father”?’ They kept asking, ‘What does He mean by “a little while”? We don’t understand what He is saying.'” John 16:17-18 NIV. 

As fully aware of His impending suffering and death on the cross as Jesus was, so unaware the disciples were. They had consistently shut their minds to what He had told them was to happen to Him at the hands of the religious leaders. Not even the Passover meal they had just eaten which He had fleshed out to point to His sacrifice as God’s Passover lamb, had alerted them to the ordeal He was shortly to face.

Now the time was almost on Him. Not even the darkness of the olive grove could shield Him from the motley army that was gathering in the city to arrest Him and drag Him off to the Sanhedrin for the mockery of a trial. How desperately He wanted to reassure His disciples that His death was a temporary interruption that would issue in very far-reaching results for them and for the world.

Had they heeded His words on the many occasions He had told them that He would be killed and would rise again on the third day, what He was now telling them would have been quite easily understood. Going away, as in death, where they would not be able see Him in His human body…and returning to them, as in a resurrection body, where they would once again see Him…for us is all so simple, but for them a complete mystery.

During His earthly ministry, they had seen Him raise the dead more than once. Only a few days previously, Lazarus had walked out of the tomb after his body had already begun to decay! But Jesus was there in person, doing the miracles by a word or a touch. To understand and believe that He would die and rise again was too much to accept and so His words sounded like nonsense to them.

“Jesus saw that they wanted to ask Him about this, so He said to them, ‘Are you asking one another what I meant when I said, “In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me’?

“‘Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born, she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So, with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.'” John 16:19-22 NIV.

The resurrection of Jesus is the hope of every person who believes in Him. For the disciples, it was His death that brought them inconsolable grief because they thought it was the end of the road for them. But after the grief came the joy and a joy that would never leave them because their Master was alive and He could never die again.

As human beings in a fallen world, we are all subject to the pain of physical and emotional suffering and loss but the promise of God’s Word is that there is a resurrection and there is a hope. After grief comes joy. Unlike the experience of people in the world who may participate in the passing pleasures the world offers, like the world in its present state, the world’s pleasures are as transient as wild flowers in the field.

“The life of mortals is like grass; they flourish like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.” Psalm 103:15, 16.

“The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.”  1 John 2:17.

“For His anger lasts only a moment, but His favour lasts a lifetime; weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.” Psalm 30:5.

As for the disciples, so for us, because Jesus is alive forever, we have the everlasting hope that our weeping will be turned to joy.

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

SO MUCH MORE…

Apologetics, ,

SO MUCH MORE…

“‘I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on His own; He will speak only what He hears, and He will tell you what is yet to come.

“He will glorify me because it is from me that He will receive what He will make known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what He will make known to you.'” John 16:12-16.

Hallelujah for the Holy Spirit!

Jesus had such confidence in the Holy Spirit that He could anticipate His own departure with the knowledge that He, the Holy Spirit, His unique and intimate partner in the work of salvation, would most competently carry on where He, Jesus, \ left off. In the emotional state His disciples were in at that moment, most of what He was telling them was probably lost to them. They could not cope with the revelation, but the Holy Spirit in them after Pentecost would be the supreme teacher of the truth they could not at that moment bear.

It is difficult for us to conceive of the closeness between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Everything that belongs to the Father is at the disposal of the Son and the Son, in turn, makes every truth and resource that the Father owns, available to us through the Holy Spirit. Although the disciples may not have grasped all that Jesus was revealing to them, their failure to understand would not negate the truth Jesus was telling them. It would all become clear when the Holy Spirit came.

What did that mean to the disciples then and what does it mean to us now? We may not grasp, believe or accept the truth that we are everything to the Father just as His Son Jesus is. He has made us equal to the Son.

“In this world,” said the apostle John, “we are like Jesus.” 1 John 4:17b.

 “Now if we are children of God, then we are heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ,” declared the apostle Paul (Romans 8:17). According to the writer to the Hebrews, “Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So, Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.” Hebrews 2:11 NIV.

But how can this overwhelming revelation become reality to us? Only as we are willing to set aside our suspicions about God and our reservations about what He has said about us, can we embrace unreservedly the magnitude of what Jesus has done for us through the cross.

Jesus promised His disciples, and us after them, that He would send the Holy Spirit and that the Spirit would make known to us every truth about Jesus and every resource of the Father for us as we can bear them. Why, then, are so many believers of many years still in spiritual kindergarten, unable to move on to spiritual maturity and certainly unable to bear witness to the new life Jesus gave us through His death?

Transformation only comes to us through the renewing of our minds. As we think, so we are. Until we are prepared to fill our minds with truth from the Word of God instead of absorbing what comes from the world, the flesh and the devil, we will remain spiritual “spaghetti”, unable to stand up and become who we are.

The apostle Paul used the word “count” which is an accounting term. Write it in the credit column of who you are — sons and daughters, heirs and equal to Jesus as His brothers and sisters — and live as though it were true because it is. The debit column has been erased. It no longer exists. “He forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us; He has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.” Colossians 2:13b-14.

“Now if we died with Christ, we believe that was will also live with Him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, He cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over Him. The death He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life He lives, He lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Romans 6:8-11.

Not only are we alive to God but we are also alive to everything He has made available to us in His Son.  The Holy Spirit administers to us all His resources as need them, and we receive them by faith.

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

HE WILL CONVINCE

Bible Study, ,

HE WILL CONVINCE

“But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. When He comes, He will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment; about sin, because people do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and about judgment because the prince of this world is judged.'” John 16:7-11.

“…Good that I am going away?” How could it be good for the disciples that Jesus was leaving them? When someone dear and close leaves through relocation or death, there is a sense of loss and abandonment that no other person can fill. The passage of time may ease the pain but the emptiness the person leaves does not go away.

What was Jesus talking about? An Advocate, a Helper, another person just like Him who was being sent to fill the gap He was leaving? How could that be? Could anyone replace Him in their lives and in their affection?

At that moment, a plan, put in place before the foundation of the world, was being played out in history, which involved all three persons of the Trinity. In perfect unity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit had their part to play in the unfolding drama of redemption. It was the Father’s role to set up the intricate details of the plan, the Son’s to carry it out and the Holy Spirit’s to administer the benefits of redemption in the lives of those who believe.

If Jesus did not leave and make way for the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers, His work on the cross would remain theory and there would be no one to release the power for it to become reality in anyone. Therefore, Jesus had to say, ‘It is good that I am going away…’ After the cross, there was nothing more for Him to do on earth. He had other roles to fulfil from the realm of heaven. He would return to the Father to take up His role as Mediator at the right hand of God (1 Timothy 2:5). He must reign until He had put all His enemies under His feet (1 Corinthians 15:25). 

From the moment of His advent on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit would be in the world and live in the believer. Jesus took the opportunity, in the final hours before His death, to explain the place the Holy Spirit would have in their lives and in the world after He had gone.

  1. The Holy Spirit has an important task in the unbelieving world – to convince the world of sin and to point people to the only one who has removed sin and opened the way for reconciliation with the Father. It is never the Holy Spirit’s nature or task to accuse. Conviction is not about accusation – it is about revelation – opening up the mind and conscience of the unbeliever to his state before God and convincing him that Jesus Christ is God’s solution to the alienation sin has brought about between man and God.

2. To the believer, the Holy Spirit is the Paracletos – the one called alongside to lift the tottering child of God when he is weighed down by burdens or smarting from the devil’s accusations. Once again, it is not the Holy Spirit’s nature to accuse. He convinces the mind and heart of God’s people that we are righteous, not sinners, so that we can become what we already are. There is no motivation to change in accusation or condemnation.

“…There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus because, through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death” Romans 8:1.

In God’s eyes, we have no past – all our sin has been forgiven, past, present and future, and we are free to become what we already are – beloved sons and daughters of the Father.

3. The Holy Spirit has only one word for “the prince of this world,” judgment! It is the only word he ever hears and the only word he can pass on to us – hence he is the accuser, but his accusation only reflects back on him, not on us because we are the righteousness of God in Christ.

How important that we identify the internal voices we hear and respond in the appropriate way; we resist the accuser by submitting to God (James 4:7); we respond to the Holy Spirit by submitting to Him. He is urging you on to become what we are, righteous, beloved children of God.

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

THEY HAVE NOT KNOWN THE FATHER

Bible Study, ,

THEY HAVE NOT KNOWN THE FATHER

“‘All this I have told you so that you will not fall away. They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God. They will do such things because they have not known the Father.

“‘I have told you this so that, when their time comes you will remember that I warned you about them. I did not tell you this from the beginning because I was with you, but now I am going to Him who sent me. None of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ Rather, you are filled with grief because I have said these things.'” John 16:1-6.

“Because they have not known the Father…”  This is a very powerful statement.

Jesus was not talking about the pagans outside in the world. He was referring to the religious leaders who were in charge of the spiritual wellbeing of God’s people, the priests and teachers of the law. In their zeal for God they side-lined or exterminated those who did not believe or do things their way. 

Unlike Satan who paints rebellion and disobedience as exciting, enjoyable, rosy and without consequences and does not expose the small print, Jesus warned His disciples what would happen to them if they faithfully followed and obeyed Him. He told them the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. They were not to be surprised or put off when they met hostility from “spiritual” people who would stop at nothing, not even murder, to keep people in bondage to their way.

Why would they do that? “Because they have not known the Father.” It’s as simple as that! Why do people do any of the terrible things they do? Because they have not known the Father. It doesn’t only have to refer to religious people. Why do husbands abuse their wives and children? Why do abused wives drink until alcohol destroys their minds? Why do unscrupulous thugs rape and steal and kill? Why do civil servants plunder government coffers? Why do people destroy family relationships through jealousy, anger, bitterness or unforgiveness? Because they have not known the Father!

Not only does this help us to understand why people do what they do; it also enables us to view their behaviour through the eyes of compassion because, as Jesus cried out forgiveness to the Father for His murderers, “they do not know what they are doing.”

All of this was too much for His disciples to take in. They were stunned and overwhelmed with grief, too broken even to ask where He was going. Nevertheless, He kept speaking, faithfully teaching them about the Holy Spirit and warning them of the pitfalls that lay ahead on their journey with Him. Though they might not have understood then, or even remembered His words at this crucial time, the seeds of truth had been sown in their minds and the Holy Spirit would bring them to remembrance when they were needed.

How comforting and encouraging it is for us to know that we have the same Holy Spirit to whom Jesus introduced his disciples and who filled them on the day of Pentecost. He equipped them and He equips us with insight, understanding and power, and accompanies us through the tortuous ways of submission and obedience to Jesus until we know Him.

Unlike those who follow the ways of sin because they do not know the Father, when we follow Jesus, He takes us to the Father. We are adopted into His family as beloved sons and daughters; we live in the Father’s presence and we get to know Him as our Father.

This was the journey that lay ahead for the disciples – in their calling to be witnesses for Jesus, they could only understand and fulfil that calling as they got to know the Father. To be a witness for Jesus is to become like Him, to love and obey Him as He loved and obeyed the Father.

“Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.” John 17:25, 26.

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.