Monthly Archives: June 2022

THE PATIENCE OF JESUS

Christian Life, ,

THE PATIENCE OF JESUS

Jesus spent many hours with His disciples, on the road, around the fire at night, in the villages and in the country, in formal and informal teaching sessions, explaining the meaning of parables, teaching them about the kingdom of God, demonstrating how the kingdom worked by doing miracles and showing mercy to all people, especially those whom society in general and the religious people in particular, despised and marginalised.

They watched in amazement at what He did, and at times were dismayed by the things He said, especially to His opponents whom they knew were gunning for Him and looking for an opportunity to get rid of Him. On one occasion they tackled Him after He had been particularly explicit about the hypocrisy of the Pharisees:

Then the disciples came to Him and asked, ‘Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?’  (Matt. 15: 12)

Jesus was not perturbed.

‘Leave them; they are blind guides.’ (Matt. 15: 14a), He responded.

Time after time, He had to go over the same thing with the disciples. They just did not get it that the kingdom He was introducing was not the revived kingdom of David, free from the Romans and under their own rule. They were continually at it, squabbling about positions in this new kingdom. Every time He overheard them, He patiently taught them about the difference between worldly authority and the true authority which came from submission to God’s authority.

Did they finally get it? No. Not until after Pentecost when the promised Holy Spirit fell on them in such power that they were completely renewed in their understanding, and began to live out their new authority, conferred on them by Jesus before He left them.

Every rabbi chose disciples in whom he had confidence that they would become replicas of himself, both living and teaching his yoke. It was no different with Jesus. When we look at the men He chose, we wonder whether He really knew what He was doing, but Luke assured us that He chose His disciples after a night of prayer.

One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray and spent the night praying to God. When morning came, He called His disciples to Him and chose twelve of them whom He also designated apostles. (Luke 6: 12-13)

Either both He and God the Father were wrong, or they could see the potential in these men which no one else could see and chose them for what they would become.

After an extended period of teaching and training, He sent them out to do what He was doing.

When Jesus had called the Twelve together, He gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, and He sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. (Luke 9: 1-2)

Later, they returned with great excitement to report that even the demons were subject to them. Jesus was as excited as they were. They had finally got it. His confidence in them had not been misplaced.

He always spoke to them as though He trusted them. He spoke of the future and told them what they would do. The only one who would fail Him completely was Judas, although Jesus gave him opportunity to change his mind. Even Peter would come back after his denial and become a leader among the disciples.

He coaxed and urged them to trust Him even when they showed their mistrust time and again. He knew that, in the end they would come to the party because the Holy Spirit was coming.

Jesus’ patience was finally rewarded when the Holy Spirit, whom He said that the Father would send to live in them ,fell on them on the day of Pentecost, filling them with everything Jesus promised and bringing to mind everything that He taught them.  

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

JESUS LOVED HIS DISCIPLES

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JESUS LOVED HIS DISCIPLES

1 It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. John 13:1

How did Jesus relate to His disciples as opposed to the way the other rabbis related to theirs? Was His relationship with them formal and impersonal, like students in a classroom who were there to learn but not to know their teacher intimately? We have nothing in Scripture to tell us about the relationship of, say Hillel or Shammai to their disciples but there is much in the gospels that bear witness to the way Jesus related to the Twelve.

First of all, there is no doubt that Jesus loved His disciples, passionately and completely. He affirmed and verbalised His love for them over and over again. He did not leave them to guess that He loved them. He told them! He wanted His love for them to be the model and motivation for their love for one another.

A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. (John 13:34)

This would be the hallmark of His disciples – not how well versed they were in the Torah or how well they performed under the anointing of the Holy Spirit or how many spiritual gifts they had, but how much His love for them was mirrored in their love for one another.

John was the one who recorded these words. What? John! The one who, with his brother James, was nicknamed Boanerges – sons of thunder! Hot heads! They wanted to call down fire on the Samaritans for not offering hospitality to Jesus. They wanted to stop a man from casting out demons in the name of Jesus because he was not one of them. What happened to you, John?

Perhaps the best way to find out what happened to change him is to be a fly on the wall in the Upper Room in Jerusalem on Passover evening. The disciples were arranged around the supper table, lounging on cushions or mats on the floor. No chairs. Judas was sitting on the left of Jesus in the place of honour so that he could converse freely with the host. John was seated on His right. John took pains to tell us that he was leaning on Jesus’s breast.

Instead of protesting, “Hey, you are invading my space!” Jesus said nothing and did nothing. He didn’t move away. He allowed John to lean on Him, to put his head on His chest, to listen to His heartbeat.

John took a huge risk. What if Jesus had rejected him, moved away in irritation, protested his presumption? Nothing happened. Jesus accepted his weight, the discomfort of his body pressing down on Him. What was He saying? “Lean on me, John. Put your full weight on me. I accept your gesture of trust. I love you, John.”

Was this the moment when the realisation hit John, not just in his head but in his heart. “Jesus loves me!” From then on, he called himself “the disciple whom Jesus loved”. That’s how he identified himself. Not “John”; not even “the son of Zebedee” or “the brother of James” but “the disciple whom Jesus loved”. What a life-transforming moment! Boanerges became the apostle of love because he experienced it and felt it. That’s how Jesus loved him.

Jesus also wanted his disciples to experience the Father’s love just as He did. He revealed the Father to them at every opportunity – by making them aware of the Father in Him, and how He referred to and related everything He said and did to the Father. This was in preparation for something much bigger that was to happen to them. He was about to do something that would change their status completely.

God was not only the Father of Jesus; He was their Father as well! After His resurrection, Jesus specifically stated that God was their Father. They would not be sitting outside, looking through the window at a family’s festivities; they would be part of the family of God now, reconciled and brought in through His sacrifice for them. He sent Mary, the first to greet Him when He emerged from the tomb, with a message for His disciples.

Jesus said, ‘Do not hold on to me for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ (John 20: 17)

Did you get that? Their relationship had changed. He was no longer only their rabbi but also their brother as well. God was His Father and their Father, His God, and their God. Did that mean that Jesus and His disciples were now on equal footing? In a sense, yes! The writer to the Hebrews picked up on this thought:

In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So, Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers. (Heb. 2: 10-11)

Wow! Now not only disciples but brothers! O yes, Jesus was elevated to the highest place and given a name above every other name, but He also invited His disciples (and that includes us if we are truly His followers) to sit on the throne with Him. James and John wanted the places of honour beside Him in glory. They had to learn that not only they, who selfishly wanted the best places, but also all who are “in Christ” will share that position with Him.

And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus. (Eph. 2: 6)

That’s how much He loves us too, and wants us to be with Him on His throne.

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

JESUS AND HIS INTIMATE COMPANION

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JESUS AND HIS INTIMATE COMPANION

What was Jesus’ relationship to the Holy Spirit? As unique as His relationship was with the Father, so unique was His relationship with the Holy Spirit. In the Trinity they were equal in essence and in glory. He was one with the Spirit as He was with the Father, but in His earthly life and in His mission, He was completely submitted to the Spirit.

At no time during His earthly life did Jesus ever become less that God. He was, and will always be, the God-man. However, He chose to veil His glory and power as God and live as a true man through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death – even death on a cross. (Phil. 2: 6-8)

The Holy Spirit was God’s agent to energise and empower Jesus for His life on earth as a human being and as the Son. Everything pivoted around His relationship to the Father as a perfect son. Where Adam failed, Jesus had to succeed because He was to undo what Adam did by a life of obedience to the Father and by His sacrificial death as our substitute. Whether His work was accepted by the Father or not depended entirely on His qualification to be a perfect Son and an atoning sacrifice by His perfect obedience.

The Holy Spirit was His hands-on companion from His conception to His resurrection. Without the same submission and obedience to the Spirit as to the Father, His life and work would never accomplish what God sent Him to do. We would assume, then, that Jesus loved the Holy Spirit as fervently and passionately as He loved the Father. He did everything in tandem with the Holy Spirit. Just as He and the Father were one, so were He and the Holy Spirit one – so that He could say.

I will ask the Father and He will send you another Counsellor to be with you forever – the Spirit of truth . . . I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. (John 14: 16-17a; 18)

Jesus spent the last hours before His passion preparing His disciples for the momentous event when the Holy Spirit would come to replace Him as His “other Comforter”. How did He know what He was like, and what He would do? Had He not lived in intimate union with Him from birth?

Jesus was a man, as human and vulnerable as the rest of humanity. He needed the power of God to live His life in obedience to the Father as surely as we, fallen human beings do. He was like us in every way. The Spirit was the Father’s representative to empower Him to do what the Father commanded Him to do. He had to rely on the Holy Spirit to energise Him just as we do. He had to learn to be a Son, though not by trial and error, as we do. He could not afford to live in error or unbelief because He would have been instantly disqualified from being a perfect lamb. He learned obedience through obeying in the midst of suffering.

Although He was a son, He learned obedience from what He suffered and, once made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him . . . (Heb. 5: 8-9)

The Holy Spirit came upon Him at His baptism in visible form. He was His close companion throughout His public ministry, pouring life and power through Him to accomplish God’s will. Jesus submitted to His leading no matter what the Spirit wanted Him to do. He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tested by the devil. He followed where He was led and did what He was led to do without questioning or wavering.

Just as we can do nothing without Jesus (John 15: 5) so Jesus could do nothing without the Spirit. He acknowledged Him as the source of His power. The Pharisees accused Him of driving out demons by the power of Beelzebub. This was ludicrous! How could a kingdom divided against itself hope to stand?

Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, ‘Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand . . . If I drive out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your people drive them out? So then, they will be your judges. But if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. (Matt. 12: 25; 27-28)

He disclosed the source of His power. It could not possibly be the power of the devil because the devil was a murderer from the beginning (John 8: 44). He was no restorer. His role was to do as much damage to people as he could, not to get rid of the very demons who were wreaking havoc in people’s lives.

We can only conclude, then, that the love and the unity Jesus experienced as the second person of the Trinity and that He enjoyed before His incarnation did not change and was not interrupted during His earthly interlude. Because of His love for the Father and the Holy Spirit, He willingly subordinated Himself to the will of the Father and to the authority of the Holy Spirit over Him as He navigated His journey from His conception to His resurrection.

Isaiah’s prophecy regarding the Holy Spirit’s role in His life as the Ebed Yahweh, the Servant of the Lord, perfectly expressed Jesus’ attitude to the other members of the Godhead.

. . . And He will delight in the fear of the Lord. (Isa. 11: 3a)

As the Son of God, Jesus lived His earthly human life not under obligation to, but in the delight of the fear of the Lord. It was the motivation for His obedience – because He was passionate about the Father. He expressed His reverence for and awe of the Father and the Holy Spirit by implicit and unquestioning obedience, and willing submission to their will and leading.

His testimony about Himself was absolutely and unquestionably true:

I and the Father are one.

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

SELF-AWARE OR GOD-AWARE?

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SELF-AWARE OR GOD-AWARE?

Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so, they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. Genesis 3:7

The first thing the guilty pair lost in the Garden of Eden was their God-awareness. They were driven to hide from God because they knew they were naked. Did they suddenly become naked after their disobedience? Were they aware of their nakedness because they had no clothes on or because their spirits were naked before God? Why did they hide? Did they think that God could not see them or would not find them?

It seems that self-awareness overshadowed their previous God-awareness. They were conscious of themselves in a way they had not been before. Sin had turned them inward. No longer was their untainted fellowship with the Father paramount in their minds. They were afraid of Him because of their guilt. They had become slaves to the fear of punishment. From that time on, God-awareness was buried under a load of self-awareness and self-absorption.

“Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” Luke 2:49

Jesus, on the other hand, had a God-awareness that manifested as early as the age of twelve. He captivated a group of religious leaders with His questions in the temple, to the extent that He was left behind when His parents set off home after the Passover. His mother’s rebuke surprised Him when they found Him in the temple. Didn’t she understand that He must be about the Father? What other twelve-year-old would be consumed by a passion to be involved with stuffy old men who spoke nothing but religion? Would he not rather be out playing marbles with his friends?

Not Jesus! He was about the Father. Everything He was and said and did, He related back to the Father. He was sent by the Father; He came from the Father; He spoke the words and did the works of the Father and He would return to the Father when His work was complete. He lived in obedience to the Father and He did only what pleased the Father.

Jesus did not waste His time debating issues with the religious leaders on the grounds of what the sages had said. He went straight back to the Torah. What did the Word have to say? It was the Word that had the final authority, not the opinions of men, even if they were the wisest and most respected scholars of the day. He walked in the light of the Word because it was the Word of the Father, and He expected His disciples to do the same.

He had a passion for the Father’s glory. Let me give you two examples:

Jesus and His disciples were out walking. They encountered a blind man on the road – probably begging by the wayside. His disciples questioned Jesus according to their philosophy of suffering, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?”

Jesus’s response was typical!

‘Neither this man not his parents sinned,’ said Jesus, ‘but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.’ (John 9: 3)

Eugene Peterson understood the significance of the NIV’s more conventional translation:

‘You’re asking the wrong question. You’re looking for someone to blame. There is no such cause-effect here. Look instead for what God can do.’ (John 9:3, The Message)

What a way to look at adversity! Not a catastrophe but an opportunity! Jesus looked at everything through the Father. Nothing was coincidence or happenstance because God was there during it and, given the chance, He would reveal His glory in it.

On another occasion, Jesus was on the other side of the Jordan, waiting for the right time to reappear. The Pharisees wanted to kill Him, but it was not yet His time. He had thrown the merchants and money changers out of the temple, arousing the wrath of the religious leaders, and He had to withdraw for a while to let things cool down.

While He was there, He got news that His friend Lazarus, was deathly sick.

When He heard this, Jesus said, ‘This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.’ (John 11: 4)

Did you get that? God-consciousness! Nothing happened apart from the Father, as far as Jesus was concerned, not even sickness. Every bad situation was an opportunity for God to reveal His glory – His mercy, remember? It all depends on one’s perspective and one’s expectation. If God was there and God was in it, it must, in the end reflect on Him.

Instead of hurrying back to Bethany, Jesus lingered where He was for another two days. He said that Lazarus’ sickness would not end in death. Lazarus did die, but that was not the end. Lazarus had to be well and truly dead, decaying, and stinking, in fact, so that there would be no doubt that it was God who raised him to life again. Imagine the risk Jesus took in letting it go that far. He was so secure in His awareness of and confidence in God that He could trust the Father to show His glory by raising a decomposing body to life.

God awareness should, in our lives. Also, be the difference between problem and opportunity.

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

THE FATHER AND I ARE ONE

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THE FATHER AND I ARE ONE

I and the Father are one.” John 10:30

Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? John 14:9-10

Jesus’ testimony was unchanged throughout His earthly life.

What He said and did was an echo of the Father. This presupposes that He spent time with the Father to nurture the unity and to get His marching orders. Even when the pressure was so great that His perspiration was stained with blood, He did not waver in His commitment to be a true Son.

He withdrew about as stone’s throw beyond them and knelt down and prayed. ‘Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.’ An angel from heaven appeared and strengthened Him. And being in anguish, He prayed more earnestly. And His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. (Luke 22: 41-44)

He was not shy to affirm His complete commitment to doing what pleased the Father, even to the use of “always”. How was it possible that the Father would not “always” be there to support Him when His loyalty was unwavering?

The One who sent me is with me; He has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases Him. (John 8: 29)

He offered Himself up to death to please the Father.

Yet it was the LORD’S will to crush Him and cause Him to suffer . . . (Isa. 53: 10a)

Jesus loved the Father passionately. His love for the Father was the motivation of His life. His commitment to unity with the Father was fuelled by His love. Anything He did that was not done out of love for the Father was of no value at all. Because of His own passion, He could make the same demand of His disciples. It was a given.

If you love me, you will obey what I command. (John 14: 15)

Jesus expressed His love for the Father through His submission and obedience, and He expected His disciples to respond to His love for them in the same way.

The greatest commandment was undoubtedly to love God fully, completely, and passionately as He had affirmed to the religion expert who had questioned Him. When He was asked on one occasion which was the greatest commandment, there could be only one answer:

One of them, an expert in the law, tested Him with this question: ‘Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?’ Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all you heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.’ (Matt. 22: 35-38)

Not only did Jesus love the Father in this way and demonstrate it by His implicit obedience to the Father’s will, but He also drew His disciples into the circle of that love to share in the ecstasy He experienced with the Father.

I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one. I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. (John 17: 22-23)

Love was the sum of the constitution of the kingdom of God given to the people of Israel in the Torah. The love between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit spilled over into the whole of mankind, sinful though they were, because love is the essence of God’s nature, and unity, fuelled by love, is the adhesive energy that holds everything together.

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. (John 3: 16)

Jesus satisfied the Father’s love for the world by doing everything the Father required of Him with joy because He delighted in the Father and in His will, no matter how costly it was and what it required of Him.

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