The promise…

Of the Spirit (part 18) 

To his best friends Jesus expressed his greatest wish – which was to “bring glory to his Father,” John 14:13. It must have been quite a shock to his disciples, however, to hear that he was bringing that glory to his Father through them. And perhaps an even greater shock that the means by which he’d bring glory to his Father through them was by him doing whatever they asked in his name. 

So in whatever they asked Jesus for it would tie in with Jesus’ great wish to bring glory to his Father. In other words, whatever they asked for was in love for Jesus to enable him to fulfill his wish. They were very much in this together, then, as partners with Jesus to rightfully bring glory to the Father who had planned this whole process in the first place. And it also honoured Jesus for the part he was willing to play in making it happen too. 

This was all about love, then – the Father’s love for wanting a massive family, the Father’s love for Jesus by enabling him to fulfill his plan and the joy that came with it; and then Jesus’ love for his Father in wanting everything he said and did to tie in with his Father’s plan, and Jesus’ love again in wanting to bring further glory to his Father through what the disciples would now be doing. And then the disciples’ love for both the Father and Jesus in the part they would now play to bring honour and glory to both of them.

Jesus then gets practical. All this love stuff wasn’t just nice thoughts and nice feelings. Nor was it defined by any human sentiment. “If you truly love me,” Jesus said in verse 15, “you will obey what I command.” The reason for that was obvious, of course, because Jesus knew exactly what they needed to do to bring glory to the Father. He knew because he’d done it himself. He’d also done exactly what his Father had commanded him to do, and again for the same obvious reason, that his Father knew exactly what needed to be done through him too. 

So in whatever they would now be asking Jesus for, it would be to help them do exactly what Jesus knew they needed to say and do, just like Jesus said his words too weren’t his own, “Rather, it is the Father living in me, who is doing his work,” verse 10. Likewise, then, Jesus would also live in them to do his work – but how would he do that?…(more on this tomorrow)