For as long as it takes we are going to study the gospel of
John chapters fourteen to seventeen. Some of it will be what I have already
written and some will be new. Therefore it may sometimes appear that I leave
off in the middle of a topic to be continued, since I have reached my daily
word count limit. We will also return to placing a blog posting daily for the
time being.
In order to follow this you ought to have read from the first
posting in the series – John 14 (One).
Our last message
got a bit long, so I had to leave it to continue later. Today’s message will
therefore be slightly shorter as a conclusion of our previous message.
"I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to
you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me.
Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in
my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you (John 14:18-20).
I read a book called ‘Divine Appointments’. In it the
author told of how he was painting his house when he heard a lady in distress
calling for help from the street. Her car had broken down. He helped repairing
the car and then the lady, who was Madonna, asked him if he would drive home
with her in case the car broke down again. He conceded and had a wonderful
opportunity to share the Gospel with her.
Imagine he was not in Jesus and in the Father and
therefore did not recognise the divine appointment arranged for him and
Madonna. Imagine he instead thought of the ‘wise’ advice that he had learnt in
church that a man should not minister to a woman and so forth. Imagine he
turned around, ignoring her plea for help because he was dead scared that she
would provoke him into sin, since he had heard in church that it usually
happens. Imagine he thought that he had to check with his pastor first. What
would then have happened? Madonna would never have had her God-ordained
opportunity to hear the Gospel from him. Fortunately for Madonna he was mature
in Christ. He knew when the Lord was speaking, and his intimacy with Christ and
the Father overruled all religion preached by the church of today. This type of
Divine Appointment happens regularly.
It is not that we try to discredit the church, but the
task of the church leadership is "to prepare God's people for works of
service, so that the body of Christ may be built up," (Ephesians 4:12 - for
the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of
the body of Christ - KJV).
This ‘preparing or perfecting’
should be a process by which Christians are taught how to be intimate with the
triune Godhead, in other words how to be ‘in Jesus’ who is ‘in the Father’.
Once we have learnt to be one with the Lord, He can start working through us
just like the Father worked through Jesus while He was on earth. If we could grasp
this secret on how the Godhead functions in relation to us - the called ones -
the church will be much more effective and powerful.
Lord, I want to move as one with
you.
Thank you Lord that
your Word went out from your mouth, via your servant’s pen, and it will not
return to you empty, but will accomplish what you desire and achieve the
purpose for which you sent it.
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