THE SPIRIT
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So we finally got to a part of the bible that I think is usually understood by most of the people who read it, it just isn’t very well liked or followed.
“I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever;
that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.
“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.
“After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also.
“In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.
“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.”
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?”
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.
“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.
“These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you.
“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.
“Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.
“You heard that I said to you, ‘I go away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved Me, you would have rejoiced because I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.
“Now I have told you before it happens, so that when it happens, you may believe.
“I will not speak much more with you, for the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me;
but so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me. Get up, let us go from here.
I think almost all of us understand that Jesus sent the holy spirit to us and that the holy spirit lives inside all believers. We understand that Jesus and the Father are one and that Jesus and the holy spirit are one. We even understand that the holy spirit being inside of us means that God is inside us and Jesus is inside us.
I don’t think that it is hard to understand that Jesus Loves the father and keeps his commandments and that if we love Jesus we will keep his commandments. I think we understand that loving Jesus and keeping his commandments go hand in hand and I think we know what most of his commandments are and understand how to keep them and what that means. And then there is the problem.
The problem is not in usually in knowing that we should obey or knowing what to do but in the actual doing of it. Sometimes we want to do the right thing and struggle because we are weak and we fail and sometimes we just don’t want to do the right thing.
Let’s take the example we are given in this passage.
“After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also.
“In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.
“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.”
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?”
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.
“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.
Jesus told the disciples that he would be going away and that the world would no longer see him but they would see him, that he was in the father and they were in him and he was in them and that if they loved him they would keep his commandments. All of these things, the exclusiveness of the holy spirits presence, that they would be in Jesus and Jesus in them, that they would keep his commandments if they loved him, he told them all of that and look what Judas heard.
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?”
The only think he heard or payed attention to out of all of that was about how they would see Jesus and the world would not. He was very interested in that one point, possible because he was about to betray Jesus to the world. The one who had sin on his heart and in his mind ignored the part about being one with Jesus and ignored the part about keeping his commandments, the only part he paid any attention to at all was the part about how Jesus would not be seen anymore by the world. In other words he ignored the part about an intimate relationship with God and he ignored the part about living a transformed life and focused only on the physical part of the statement, the part of Jesus’ words that dealt with the lost and with the world was the only part he wanted to know more about. He didn’t question or wonder about how Jesus and he could be one and be one with God, he didn’t ask anything about how to obey Jesus or how to show love to Jesus he only wanted to know about the physical presence of Jesus.
Isn’t it interesting how Jesus answered him. This is classic Jesus, He actually didn’t even address the question Judas asked, he didn’t talk about what Judas seemed most interested in, instead he talked about what was most important to Jesus himself.
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.
“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.
Judas asked about Jesus and his relationship to the world and Jesus answered him by talking about the relationship between God, Jesus and every person who is saved. This was not about status or about who is part of the group and who is not, it was not about the rights and privileges of being a child of God it was about the relationship between Jesus and his disciples, between God and his children.
Jesus began by telling us who we are. I am in the father and father is in me and I am in you, the father and I are one and he is in me and I am in you. Jesus was making it clear that we are not just followers of God but that God himself lives inside us. Jesus compared our relationship to the him with his relationship to the father. Have you ever thought about the fact that Jesus said we would have the same relationship to him that he has to the father. What kind of relationship does Jesus have to God, they are one. They think the same and act the same, they work toward the same goals with the same purposes in mind. Jesus and the father are on even as you and Jesus are one. He literally states that your relationship with Jesus should be the same kind of relationship that Jesus has with God the father.
Do you think that you are there, does your relationship with Jesus remind you of Jesus’ relationship with the father. Does the way you act toward Jesus remind you of the way Jesus acted toward God. Why not, it is the same type of relationship according to Jesus himself. What is missing.
Actually that is an easy question, Jesus himself tells us the answer. It’s the same answer he gave Judas
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.
“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.
If you love Jesus you will keep his word and the father will love you and both Jesus and the father will come into you and make his home in you. If you don’t love Jesus then you don’t keep his words which are the words of the father. You want Jesus and the father to come into you and live in you and be as close to them as Jesus is to the father then keep his words. That is what he said. In fact he wanted to emphasize it so much that he cut this teaching moment off abruptly by restating this point.
“I will not speak much more with you, for the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me;
but so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me. Get up, let us go from here.
Just so that you will know and understand what I mean I am doing exactly what the father commanded me to do so that you will see how this should work. In other words Jesus has a relationship with the father that is so close that they are one, he offers us the same type of relationship with him, and since he and the father are one we would then have the same type of relationship with the father. It is the same type of relationship and it has the same type of requirements. Jesus said I do exactly what the father commands me to do. The father and I are one. You and I can be one. You need to do exactly what I command you to do.
Have you ever wanted a deeper and more intimate relationship with Jesus, have you ever wondered how to be closer to Jesus and have more of Jesus in your life. Have you ever wanted to feel his presence and know that he is right there with you all the time and in every way. Jesus says that is what he has with the father. They are one in purpose, in thinking and in action. Jesus says that that kind of relationship is available to you too. All you have to do is do what Jesus did. Jesus obeys the father and keeps his commandments and so they are one in purpose and action. If you want to be one in purpose and action with Jesus you need to do what he did, keep his commandments. In other words do what he says.
Most of the time we don’t struggle to know what to do we just struggle with doing it. According to Jesus, and I think he knows what he is talking about, the way to get closer to God is not through some higher form of spirituality or reaching some higher consciousness, it is not some state of being or some great mental or spiritual plane you have to reach. It is simply showing your love of Jesus by doing what he says to do.
Interestingly enough God often calls us his children. Do you know how children show love to their parents, by obeying their words and doing what their parents expect them to do. Do you know how God’s children show love to God, the same way.
So how does your love look, how are you at following God’s word. Obedience is God’s love language. If you want to show your love to God, obey him and he will show his love to you. That is what Jesus said. That is how it works. Now what will you do with it.