Tag Archives: Father

The Keys To Real Life

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THE KEYS TO REAL LIFE 

“‘I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me any more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realise that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.’

Then Judas (not Iscariot) said, ‘But Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?’ Jesus replied, ‘Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love him and we will come and make our home with him. Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.'” John 14:18-24 NIV.

We are dealing with a fairly long passage of Scripture today, but it is important that we look at the whole piece because there are some very important teachings in it.

It was difficult for the disciples to make the transition from the seen to the unseen. As Jews they understood abstract ideas through action. Take, for example, the word “holy” meaning items that are set aside for a special purpose. The Hebrew verb is qadash and the nouns derived from it are qodesh and qadosh.

“‘Do not come any closer,’ God said.’Take off your sandals for the place where you are standing in holy (qodesh) ground (ground set aside for a special purpose). Exodus 3:5.

“When these words are translated as “holy”, the original Hebraic meaning is removed and replaced with an abstract word that conveys the idea of pious, perfect or sinless. But the Hebraic concept of these words is about the position of a person or object and does not necessarily have to be a “holy” position.” The Living Words Volume 1, Jeff A Benner, Virtualbookworm.com Publishing Inc, 2007, page 84, article “Holy”.

One can understand why it puzzled them that Jesus was talking about “going away” and “showing Himself” to them but not to the world. They did not realise that He was speaking about living in another realm in which they could be “in the world but not of the world.”

This realm into which, from Jesus’ perspective, they had already entered although they did not yet fully understand it, was entered through recognizing who He was and entered into by faith in Him. Hence Jesus’ insistence that they believe in Him, without which faith they could never experience what He was talking about.

But faith in and of itself was not enough to embrace the fullness of the life Jesus had come to give them. Without a passionate love for Him, faith was sterile and would not issue in the kind of obedience that was more than mere compliance with what Jesus “commanded”. He spoke of a union with Himself and with the Father that was so close that it produced a spontaneous obedience out of submission to Him and the Father that did not question or resist but simply flowed with the will of God in perfect harmony.

What I find significant in this passage is that Jesus spoke of this union and obedience as though it were already a reality in their lives. They were still to enter into greater measures of its fullness but they already had the life of God in them because they believed in Him, and their love for Him was real and growing. They had developed a dependence upon Him that would be shaken by the whole cross event but would be rekindled as they learned to relate to the Holy Spirit as Jesus’ “other self”.

It was important that they realise that they were to see themselves as sons of God and not as orphans! How important this is in the life of every believer because the “orphan heart” robs us of everything we have in Christ and neutralises our effectiveness as His representatives of the kingdom of God. As orphans we have no sense of belonging, no inheritance and we live like slaves in the fear of punishment.

Only as we recognise and embrace our sonship can we live in the power, authority and resources of our position, and experience the perfect love of God that drives out fear and can respond with faith and love that enable us to appropriate all that we are and have “in Christ”..

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” 1 John 3:1a NIV.

“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” 1 John 4:18 NIV.

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.

The True Test

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THE TRUE TEST 

“Philip said, ‘Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.’ 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?’ Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words that I say to you, I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing His work.

“Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves.'” John 14:8-11 NIV.

More of Jesus’ unforgettable words uttered in response to a question!

Would the disciples ever forget these last hours with Jesus in the Upper Room? The Passover meal had been eaten, the ceremonies observed that had reminded them of the first Passover meal their forefathers had eaten in Egypt. It was eaten in haste while they were poised for flight from the wrath of Pharaoh when his own firstborn son lay dead at the hands of the angel of death.

Egypt lay in ruins, systematically destroyed as God hit the land and its people with plague after destructive plague. Pharaoh had stubbornly resisted God’s command until this! It was the last straw and he ordered the Israelites out of the land before their God did anything worse to them.

Now Jesus had introduced a new ceremony infused with a new meaning for His followers to observe from then on – a ceremony deeply rooted in the events of the Passover but symbolizing a deliverance far greater than the deliverance from slavery in Egypt. In the simple symbols of bread and wine they would never forget the death of God’s Passover Lamb who would lay down His life to set His people free from slavery to sin.

In the Passover lambs killed and eaten by each family, they were to recognize that they were protected from death by faith in the blood of a lamb. No animal blood could protect them, but there was a lamb, God’s Lamb who would be put to death in a few hours, the efficacy of whose shed blood would atone for the sins of all people for all time.

Jesus savoured the precious moments with His disciples before it was time to hand Himself over for the sacrifice. What would be the subject of His final words to them? There was nothing more meaningful for Him to talk about than the Father, and to prepare them for the greatest of all gifts they were to receive — the gift of the Holy Spirit who would come in His place as His representative to live within them.

First of all, though, He had to make sure that they knew that there was unity between Father, Son and Holy Spirit so intimate that the Holy Spirit who would come to indwell them would be to them exactly as He had been, and would say and do in them exactly the same as He had said and done. Just as Jesus had perfectly represented the Father, so the Holy Spirit would perfectly represent Him.

In response to Thomas and Philip’s questions, Jesus assured them that it was His intention to show them the way and to take them to the Father. They would easily recognize the Father because Jesus was an exact replica of the Father. In every way He perfectly resembled the Father; all they had to do was to listen to His words and look at His works and they would know the Father just as they had known Him.

Jesus could not have explained it more clearly. In future days, when He was no longer with them in person, they had a standard by which to measure the words and works of those who were claiming to be representatives of God and, of course, of their own activities in His name. True sons resemble their fathers. One only has to watch and listen to the son to know what his father is like.

Not the claims but the works are the true test.

Faith Is The Glue

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FAITH IS THE GLUE 

“Yet at the same time many even among the leaders believed in Him. But because of the Pharisees they would not openly acknowledge their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue, for they loved human praise more than the praise of God.

“Then Jesus cried out, ‘Whoever believes in me does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me. The one who looks at me is seeing the one who sent me. I have come into the world as a light so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.'” John 12:42-46 NIV.

Secret believers! Held captive by fear!

This is the power of false religion. Because religion has its origin in the human mind, it needs humans to defend it and force to keep people from leaving when they know the truth; force, the only way humans know how to exercise power. Fear holds people in bondage and force protects their loyalty.

These religious leaders were bound by the fear of what their colleagues would do to them if they followed Jesus. Is it possible to believe but not to follow? Jesus said not. To follow Him means to take up the cross. Anyone who carried a cross was on the way to death. A disciple is one who has embraced his rabbi, his rabbi’s yoke, and everything his rabbi stands for. He is no longer his own person. He has died. These Jewish leaders, whom John said believed in Him, had not done that. They were afraid.

But fear and force cannot bind the conscience when it is convinced of the truth. How was it that the apostles and many thousands after them, were willing to lay down their lives rather than deny that Jesus is Lord? Did He threaten them with death if they refused to acknowledge Him? Did He destroy Peter for denying him with oaths and curses? What changed cowering men into courageous witnesses? The resurrection convinced them that He was the Son of God and not even death could scare them into submission to the Roman authorities or the bullying religious leaders.

But the reward for believing in Jesus far outweighs the cost! There is a revelation of the face of the Father in the face of Jesus that is reserved for those who recognize and embrace the truth that He and the Father are one.

Throughout the history of His people, Jesus had dealings with them in many different ways. He met Moses through the miracle of a desert bush that burned with an unearthly fire but was not consumed and revealed His name to him on the mountain. He revealed His glory in dreams and visions to His prophets, men like Isaiah and Ezekiel; He gave His personal protection to Daniel in the den of lions and his three colleagues in Nebuchadnezzar’s fire; He spoke in an audible voice to Abraham and Jacob and even wrestled with Jacob until he prevailed and became a prince with God.  But they never saw His face.

Now He was here on earth in person, in human form so that all men might see the face of God in Him; but only those who believed the truth of who He was would recognize in Him the nature of the Father He represented. To some He was a blasphemer; to others at best a prophet or just a good man. Only to those who believed in Him was He the face of the Father.

John lived and walked with Him for three and a half years. To him, Jesus was the Word become flesh…”We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, full of grace and truth.” John 1:14. Paul met Him on the Damascus road and, from then on He was, to him “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.” Colossians 1:15. To the unknown writer to the Hebrews He was “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being…” Hebrews 1:3.

How did Jesus respond to Philip’s request, ‘”Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us’? “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.'” John 14:8, 9.

The miracle is that Jesus is just Jesus, good man, prophet perhaps, until faith opens the eyes and the heart sees Him as the Son of God and a mirror image of the Father. This is the glue that binds us to Him. We are not held to loyalty by fear or threats of death. To believe in Him is to see Him and to see Him is to love Him. “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” 1 John 4:18 NIV.