John 16 (Four) Ask and... Oops What did I Receive?

Good day

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.

To pick up the topic, you may need to read the one or two postings preceding this one.

“‘A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me.’ So some of his disciples said to one another, ‘What is this that he says to us, ‘A little while, and you will not see me, and again a little while, and you will see me’; and, ‘because I am going to the Father’?’ So they were saying, ‘What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We do not know what he is talking about,’” (John 16:16-18).

Why did Jesus not give them the details at the time? Other references where He

informed them of His fate were as follows: “For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth,” (Matthew 12:40) and “From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised,” (Matthew 16:21), “As they were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, ‘The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day.’ And they were greatly distressed,” (Matthew 17:22-23) and “See, we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day,” (Matthew 20:18-19).

We see therefore that according to Matthew Jesus gave the disciples plenty of warning and He revealed the details and intensity thereof progressively. It could be that John’s recollection as recorded in John 16:16 above was the first of the series of warnings and that Jesus got more specific each time He revealed this information. In John 16:16 the disciples were puzzled about this and found it hard to figure out, and I can imagine that they wished Jesus would not talk so much in ‘riddles’, but be more straightforward. I for one would have preferred straight talk. However, Jesus did say in Matthew 11:28-30: “Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Had He dropped the bomb of His fate on them without preparing them, who knows what their reaction would have been?

In the same way He deals gently with us. We often complain that we do not get answers to our prayers and that the Lord does not seem to give us what we want, but He knows much better than us what we could handle. He did tell us in Isaiah 55:8-9: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” He knows each of us from inside out (Psalm 139) and when it comes to revelation, the most important revelation we need from Him is who we are and where we are at. Once we realise that we are like dust, not deserving anything and therefore totally dependent on Jesus, we are ready to have Him have His way in us, which is why Peter had to be allowed to deny Jesus and Thomas to doubt Him. They had to first discover how dependant they were on Him.

We watched the Walt Disney movie ‘Brave’ last night and although it had magic in it, it still had a spiritual lesson. The girl asked the witch to change her mother’s attitude and then something completely different happened to her mom (I will not give the movie away). At first the girl could not understand why the witch would have made such a mistake, but both she and her mother changed through this weird thing that had happened to her mom, and the trials they had gone through because of this. The Lord works in exactly the same way. We often get initially something completely different to what we have asked for, but through His wisdom and knowledge of who we are He uses those circumstances to prepare us for what He needs us to do, change us to what He wants us to be and helps us to discover ourselves.

If for example we refuse to obey His instruction to move on and He wants to move us on, He may make circumstances unbearable for us so we would desire to get out of our comfort zone, and would then open an attractive opportunity there where He aimed for us to be, but all the time He will gently be there to comfort and support us.

Lord, I trust you to always be gentle with me as you guide me in your will for my life.

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.

Please pass this on if you think others may benefit by it.