SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/22/2016 10:13 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
The Presence of the Father
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: John 14:21-24
Message of the verses: “"21 He who has My commandments and
keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My
Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him." 22 Judas
(not Iscariot) said to Him, "Lord, what then has happened that You are
going to disclose Yourself to us and not to the world?" 23 Jesus answered
and said to him, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father
will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him. 24 “He who
does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not
Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me.”
There are
some who teach that a person has to obey all of the commandments and Laws of
the Word of God in order that they may be saved, but that is not what the Bible
teaches at all. The Bible teaches that
everyone is born a sinner and in need of a Savior who has been the One who took
the payment of our sins on the cross.
Those who accept His offer of salvation will then be born into His
family and because of that we will be able to keep His commandments. This happens after salvation, and not
before. “Because by the works of the Law
no flesh will be justified in [God’s] sight” (Romans 3:20).
We see in verse
21 that the only ones who love Christ will be loved by His Father. We have seen this before in John’s gospel
when Jesus was talking to the Pharisees and said to them “He who does not honor
the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him (John 5:23). He will say later in John 15:23 “He who hates
Me hates My Father.” The fact that we
are talking about the triune God shows us that you cannot love the Father and
not love the Son or the Holy Spirit for they are all one so as you love One you
love them all, and this is one of the mysteries of the trinity.
I have to
admit that there are times when I read the gospels and someone asks Jesus a
question and then the next verse does not seem to be an answer to the question
that was asked. This is one of the times
when I look at the question that Judas (not Iscariot) asked Jesus. This Judas is also called Judas the son of
James in Luke 6:16 and then in Matthew 10:3 he is also called Thaddeus. I suppose that he would prefer that name and
not Judas after what Judas Iscariot did.
John MacArthur writes that “Judas assumed that Jesus was speaking of
returning physically to establish His earthly kingdom (cf. Acts 1:6). He could not understand how, that being the
case, Jesus would disclose Himself to the disciples, and not to the world. After all, Jesus was the Savior of the world
(John 4:42); the rightful heir of the earth (Heb. 1:2); the King of Kings and
Lord of Lords (Rev. 19:16). The good
news of the forgiveness and salvation that He brought was to be proclaimed
throughout the whole world (Matt. 28:19).
Why then, Judas wondered, was Jesus not going to make Himself known to
everyone?”
Now the
answer that He gives to him is found in verse 23 “If anyone loves Me, he will
keep My word.” Jesus actually prayed
something similar in John 17:6 which says “"I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out
of the world; they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have
kept Your word.” We learn that Jesus
would reveal Himself to those who loved Him and that would be His disciples,
for there is no evidence that after His resurrection that He revealed Himself
to an unbeliever with the possible exception of Saul of Tarsus who He revealed
Himself to him that he might save him.
This is the third time in this section (cf. vv. 15, 21) that Jesus links
genuine love and obedience for Him.
Jesus will not only love those who love Him but the Father will also
love them too. Jesus goes on to say in
verse 24 that those who do not love Him will not keep His Words. So we have the opposite statement here which
tells us that it is only those who have been born from above have the capacity
of loving Christ as they now have the Holy Spirit in them to help in loving
Christ.
We learn in
the last part of verse 24 that the words that they hear are not His but His
Father who sent Him. This is another
indication of the trinity and perhaps what I am going to say is not totally
correct, but it seems to me that the Son came to earth as the Holy Spirit came
upon Mary and then during the ministry the Holy Spirit was showing Christ what
to say as it came from the Father. Yes
the mystery of the trinity is a great mystery, and yet it is seen throughout the
Bible, even in the Old Testament.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I know that I had no capacity to love God
before He first loved me and loving Christ it seems to me is a process as I
learn more about it as I study His Word each day, and by doing that I can love
Him the way that He teaches me to love Him.
My Steps of Faith for
Today: To continue to learn to love
the Lord.
Memory verses for the week (in review): (Romans 6:5-6) “5 For if we have become
united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the
likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified
with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would
no longer be slaves to sin;”
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “Southern.”
Today’s Bible question: “How was Elijah taken up to heaven?”
Answer in our next SD.
11/22/2016 11:12 AM
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