Good day
After a longer
break than anticipated my fingers started dancing on the keyboard again. I was
not totally unproductive during this time, though. We have gotten involved with
a wonderful fellowship and are working with them at some teaching projects, one
of which is training children in basic spiritual truths.
I felt the Lord has
asked me to continue with this blog and will therefore write as the Holy Spirit
leads, but at least weekly. Please just remember that all the other posts are
still awaiting your reading in the menu to the right of this teaching.
We are going to
look at the letters (epistles) of John. John was the disciple of love. The
Bible describes John as the disciple that Jesus loved. During the Passover meal
we read in John 13:23: “Now there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one of His disciples,
whom Jesus loved.” It is generally accepted that it was John, maybe since he
did not mention his own name. John’s gospel and his letters to the church speak
of love for and understanding of the Lord. They are just so much different from
and more intimate than the rest of the New Testament.
The Lord entrusted
John with revelation about Father God and the love relationship He desires with
His children. John understood it because of his own intimate relationship with
Jesus. We have not been there to observe his relationship with our Lord, but it
is easy to picture the relationship between a couple, two friends or a parent
and child who are really in love with one another. I am sure that when the
other disciples were bantering with one another during relaxing times in Jesus’
ministry, John probably was sitting chatting with Jesus, getting to know Him
better, sharing with Him intimate secrets, enjoying Jesus’ personality and so
did Jesus John’s. He seems to have bonded more than the others with Jesus.
Because of this
relationship and special love, John would have heard more of Jesus’ heart that
of His words when He taught. Due to all of this John were able to teach with
authority on the subject of Father’s love, because he understood it. This why
he was able to write in John 14:21, 23: “‘He who has My commandments and keeps
them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father,
and I will love him and manifest Myself to him. 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 home with him.’”
The deeper our
relationship with Jesus is and the more we love Him by living strictly in
obedience to His spoken and written Word, the deeper our understanding of Him
will be and we will be able to live out our particular gift with authority; be
it teaching, evangelism, caring, serving, leading and so on.
The epistles of
John in particular provide much teaching about a love relationship with Father
God and we are going to see what we can learn from them in the next number of
posts.
I will write as the
Lord instructs, but will try to keep it short. Next time we will delve into the
first epistle of John.
Lord please guide
our hearts as we learn from you.
