Why Jesus?…

In his own words (part 20)

In everything Jesus said and did he modelled the kingdom of heaven. It’s what his Father sent him to this planet for, to “testify to what he has seen and heard” in heaven, John 3:32. 

In sending Jesus, then, the Father was bringing heaven to this earth, setting up his kingdom, his world, and even his home here too (14:23). To which Jesus then said in John 17:18, “As you, Father, sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.”

Well, that nicely explains why we are Jesus’ disciples – because it’s through us now that Jesus is continuing what his Father started in him. We are now the ones through whom the kingdom of heaven is being set up on the earth. It’s through what we now say and do, therefore, that we, just like Jesus, are modelling what heaven is like.

Which is why Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to us, as he explains in John 15:26 – “When the Counsellor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me.” So the Spirit’s job is to “testify” about Jesus, by making it clear what he’d come to this planet for, that he’d been sent by the Father to model what he’d seen and heard in heaven. 

But that’s just the first part, because Jesus goes on to say in verse 27, “but you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.” So it would now become the disciples’ job to make it clear what Jesus came to this planet for, which they could – having watched him in action, and seen and heard what heaven was like in him.  

And they’d have the help to do it too, because – as Jesus put it in John 16:14 -“theSpirit will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you.” So the Spirit’s purpose is to bring glory to Jesus, by first of all enabling Jesus to do what his Father sent him for, but now continuing to bring glory to Jesus by taking what Jesus did in his lifetime and “making it known” to his disciples so that Jesus’ life can now be modelled in our lives too. 

So the Father sent Jesus, and Jesus now sends us, to set up the kingdom of heaven on earth, by us now modelling it in what we say and do, just like Jesus did…(continues Friday)