In his own words (part 7)

So why did Jesus tell his disciples in John 15:12, “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you”?

Two reasons: first of all, to fulfill his promise back in John 14:12 that “anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing.” And what he’d been doing was loving his disciples, John 15:9: “As my Father has loved me, so have I loved you.” His disciples, therefore, could now love as Jesus loved. 

And why was that important? For the second reason, which was to bring glory to the Father, just as Jesus had done, by making the Father’s love visible. Jesus had made his Father’s love visible by loving his disciples in the same way his Father had loved him. The disciples could now make the Father’s love visible by loving each other in the same way Jesus had loved them.

So there’s a sequence here: first the Father’s love for Jesus. Jesus then loves his disciples like his Father loved him. The disciples then love each other like Jesus had loved them. And so the Father’s love would spread.

The disciples loving each other, therefore, was the next crucial stage in the Father’s love being made visible on this planet. And the key to that happening was Jesus’ statement in the last part of John 15:12, that the disciples love each other “as I have loved you.” 

Jesus focused his disciples’ attention on his love for them. He really did love them too, as John relates in John 13:1 – “Having loved his own who were in the world, Jesus now showed them the full extent of his love.” More than anything, therefore, Jesus wanted his disciples to know he loved them and always would. That was the starting point for them. 

It was for Jesus too, because this was exactly what his Father had done for him, when Jesus heard the words, “This is my Son, whom I love” back in Matthew 3:17. At the very start of Jesus’ ministry, therefore, the most important thing that would ground him and prepare him for whatever happened next, was knowing he was loved. The Father did that for him, so it’s no surprise that Jesus did the same for his disciples, which explains why Jesus told them to “remain in my love” in John 15:9…(continues Wednesday) 

In his own words (part 6)

It was the Father’s wish that Jesus choose some disciples and love them. Because in loving them they would love each other, and loving each other would be the best clue of all for clearly identifying them as his disciples.

It’s one of the great secrets of heaven that the Father sent Jesus to tell us – which is what Jesus does in John 15. 

In verse 9, Jesus got the secret rolling around in his disciples’ heads when he told them, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.”  Two points here: that, first of all, Jesus knew the Father loved him. He knew what the Father’s love was like, and to him it was the most wonderful thing of all. What could top his Father’s love? What greater thing was there in all creation and beyond into eternity than being loved by the Father? And Jesus is saying he knew this love intimately. 

Which is amazing when applied to the second part of that verse, because Jesus then says he loves his disciples with the same love his Father has for him. So not only does he know the Father’s love personally, he’s also capable of expressing his Father’s love to his disciples too.

So the Father is getting his heavenly ball of love rolling on this planet through Jesus loving as he loves and expressing that love to his disciples. They were the next in line, then, to be caught up in this rolling ball of love that had come trundling out from heaven in the person of Jesus.  

At which point Jesus then says to his disciples, in the last part of verse 9, “Now remain in my love” – or “Never lose sight of knowing I love you.” Because his love for them and knowing what his love was like, were the most wonderful things of all that could happen to them too. And not only in them knowing and experiencing his love, but also in being able to express his love as well – just as Jesus knew and experienced his Father’s love and was able to express it too.  

The Father’s love, therefore, was spreading – first through Jesus knowing and expressing his Father’s love, and now through the disciples knowing and experiencing Jesus’ love and being able to express that love of his to each other now as well. The ball of heavenly love was well and truly rolling…(continues Monday) 

In his own words (part 5)

In John 15:16, Jesus made an extraordinary statement that I’m only just coming to terms with, when he said to his disciples, “You did not choose me, I chose you.” 

If that means, then, that I didn’t choose Jesus either and he chose me, then please, I’d like to know, is there any obvious evidence that he chose me and I truly am his disciple? 

Jesus offers a clue in the same verse, when he says his disciples will “bear fruit – and fruit that will last.” Because, verse 8, it’s in the “bearing of much fruit” that “you show yourselves to be my disciples.” These are obvious and permanent fruits being produced in us, therefore, that clearly identify us as his disciples. 

But what sort of fruits was Jesus getting at? 

For starters, he told his disciples in John 14:12, that “anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing.” Well, that makes sense, because if we’re his disciples trusting him to teach us and help us be like him – then the obvious result of that would be the same kind of fruit in our lives that he produced in his. And he also said in verse 12 that he’d be going back to his Father to enable us to “do even greater things” than he did, making it even more obvious that we are his disciples. 

So what exactly did Jesus do in his lifetime that he now enables us to do in ours? 

He tells us what he did in verse 31: “I love the Father and I do exactly what my Father has commanded me.” In both word and deed (verse 10) he was totally in tune with his Father’s wishes, because he loved him. It was as simple as that. 

But there was a second thing Jesus did that was also in tune with his Father’s wishes, when he told his disciples in John 15:9, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.” His Father wanted him to do that too – to love his disciples with the same love his Father had for him, because in that was the best clue of all for clearly identifying them as his disciples…(continues Friday) 

In his own words (part 4)

In his own words, Jesus came into our world “to bring glory to the Father,” John 14:13. While on this planet, then, Jesus was his Father’s biographer and portrait painter, which he was fully qualified to be – having personally “seen and heard” the workings of heaven and his Father in action (John 3:32). If anyone could turn a magnifying glass on the Father to see his brilliance in fine detail, therefore, Jesus could. 

So it’s not surprising when Jesus told his disciples in verse 6 that he was “the way” to the Father, “the truth” about the Father, and a demonstration of “the life” of the Father. “No one,” he concludes therefore, “comes to the Father except through me.” It was only through Jesus “passing on everything I learned from my Father,” for instance (John 15:15), that his disciples knew anything about the Father at all.

And to top that off, it was only by his example that they’d come to know the Father too. Or as Jesus put it in John 14:7, “if you really knew me you’d know my Father too.” It was through Jesus being the perfect reflection of the Father, therefore, that the Father could be truly known. 

None of this had hit Philip yet, however,because he says in verse 8, “Show us the Father and that’ll be enough for us.” To which Jesus replies in verse 9, “Don’t you get who I am, Philip, even after all this time I’ve been with you? Because anyone who’s seen me has seen the Father. So how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’ when (verse 10) I’m in the Father and he’s in me. So when I speak, they aren’t just my words – they’re his too. And whatever I do, it’s my Father living in me doing it.”

That’s because, as Jesus said earlier in John 5:19, “the Son can do nothing by himself; he can only do what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.” Everything about Jesus himself, then, was designed to accurately portray his Father.  

But there was another way Jesus was revealing the glory of his Father – and perhaps the most meaningful way to his disciples too – when he told them in John 15:8, “This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit.” It was through Jesus enabling them to do that, therefore, that would not only bring glory to the Father, it would clearly identify them as Jesus’ disciples too…(continues Wednesday) 

In his own words (part 3)

It was in Jesus’ own words, “You believe at last!” in John 16:31 that we see how important it was to Jesus that his disciples believed he’d come from God (verse 30) – because – in believing he’d come from God they’d take what he taught seriously.

And that was important, because as Jesus said in John 14:21, “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me.” So taking what he said seriously would be his disciples’ means of loving him.

But why was loving Jesus so important? Because (same verse), “He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.”

So there’s a sequence here that opens up this world of love that both the Father and Jesus have for us – the sequence being: believing Jesus came from God, which leads to taking what Jesus taught seriously, which is how we love him, which leads to the Father loving us, and Jesus also loving us by showing us more of himself so we love him for who he is, as well as for what he taught.  

In verse 23 Jesus goes back to the point, though, that “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching.” Because that’s the ‘key code’ that opens the door to the second part of verse 23, which is: “My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” 

So this is the sequence by which the love of both the Father and Jesus become real to us: it’s through the Father and Jesus setting up home in those who express their love for Jesus by obeying what he taught. 

But how do the Father and Jesus “set up home” in us? By sending the Holy Spirit to live in us and with us (verse 17) as our constant guide and personal counsellor, bringing to mind what Jesus taught and how it applies to our circumstances (verse 26). Because it’s in the Spirit doing that for us that more and more we see the value of Jesus’ teaching and therefore an even greater desire to obey it, which in turn opens up this whole new world of love for him and the Father’s love for us.

No wonder Jesus was so elated, then, when his disciples believed he’d come from God, because now the ball was really rolling…(continues Monday) 

In his own words (part 2)

The process of heaven becoming real on this earth began with Jesus’ disciples believing that Jesus had “come from the Father,” John 16:28. “You believe at last!” he cried out in verse 31. 

So Jesus was jolly pleased that they believed he’d “come from God” (verse 30), but why was he pleased? Because, verse 27: “the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.” He was delighted with their belief because the result of it was the Father loving them.   

In asking the question, then, “Why Jesus?” – Jesus answered that for us in verse 27: he came from God to bring his Father’s love. When the Father sent Jesus to us it came with the message: “Give them my love” – like we say to visiting friends and relatives to give our love to those we know when they get back home. Back at their home base, then, they become messengers of our love, just like Jesus came to our home base to be a messenger of his Father’s love. 

And knowing the Father’s love would certainly make heaven real. It would open up a new world. So it’s no surprise that Jesus also explained to his disciples in verse 27 how that world would open up to them: “The Father himself loves you because you have loved me.”    

The obvious question then is: “How do we love Jesus?” In Jesus’ own words it’s obeying what he taught (John 14:23) – in recognition, John 7:16, that “My teaching is not my own. It comes from him who sent me.” So what Jesus taught came directly from the Father (14:10), and what “I learned from my Father I have made known to you,” John 15:15. So this was how they’d come to know the Father’s world and the Father’s love – through the direct line the Father had set up in the teaching of Jesus.  

And his disciples got that, because in John 16:30 they told Jesus, “Now we can see that you know all things and there’s no need for anyone to ask you any more questions.” It was seeing at last in Jesus’ amazing knowledge about the Father that “makes us believe you came from God.” 

And that was the starting point for what the Father had sent Jesus for – to make his love and his world real to Jesus’ disciples…(continues Friday) 

Explained in his own words (part 1)

In John 16:28 Jesus summarized his existence this way: “I came from the Father and entered the world; now I’m leaving the world and going back to the Father.”  

And that simple explanation seemed to satisfy his disciples because they replied in verse 29, “Now you’re speaking clearly.” Somehow it had got through to them that Jesus really had come from God. He wasn’t just a prophet, a teacher, or a healer who could work miracles; he was an extra terrestrial who’d landed on this planet “from above,” as Jesus phrased it in John 3:31. 

He wasn’t “from the earth,” because, he said, anyone from the earth “belongs to the earth,” but “the one who comes from heaven is above all.” So in his own words he was above and beyond anything that could be seen, heard or experienced naturally on this planet. 

But what proof did he offer that this was true? It was simple: everything he said and did was based purely on what he’d “seen and heard” in heaven, verse 32. And that he was utterly unique in his experience of heaven because “No one (else) has ever gone to heaven except the one who came from heaven” (verse 13).

It was an extraordinary claim, that this walking, talking human had come from heaven to speak of what he’d personally seen and heard in heaven, and also to act out heaven on the earth so that it could “be seen plainly,” verse 21, “that what he’d done was done through God.” Only God working in and through him could explain why Jesus was so different to anything seen or heard on earth.  

And then Jesus said in verse 35, that God had “placed everything in his hands” – with God’s unlimited power backing him up too (verse 34) – to make the life of heaven real. And it was to his disciples this understanding would be given, because it would be through them believing it that the process of heaven becoming real on this planet would begin. 

In what ways, then, would heaven become real through them?…(continues Wednesday)  

To Joy (part 18)

Jesus said a lot of things that puzzled his disciples. And when they asked him for an explanation, it sometimes made things worse, because on his own admission he’d “been speaking figuratively,” John 16:25 – like calling himself the “bread of life” (6:35) and the “true vine” (15:1).

But at this stage in their lives they were like children needing stories and analogies in earthly terms to get spiritual, heavenly points across to them. Like my oldest granddaughter who has trouble grasping why God is important. And as yet she’s not ready to go to God herself for an answer, so I need an explanation that makes sense in her terms at this stage in her life too.

Somehow I had to get across the need for another dimension beyond this one, without calling it “God.” What came to mind was a cartoon she’d drawn when she was around ten years old. She called it “The Squidgy Alien,” an oblong creature like a flying saucer with three eyes and little thin legs, and the subject of the cartoon was questions the aliens had trouble answering. But when an answer dawns on them and the alien scratches his head and says, “I wonder…,” he has exactly ten seconds to live and that’s it, game over, and there he lies with his little thin legs in the air and all three eyes closed.

So I used her cartoon to create the same picture of our lives, that we too are living in a world that constantly puzzles us, but just when we’re wising up a bit and finding answers, we keel over and die. So what on earth is the point of this life, when even if we do wise up and get answers we can’t benefit from them?  

Surely, then, there has to be another dimension in existence that set life up this way so we could learn by experience what works and what doesn’t in preparation for a world where we can benefit from what we’ve learnt. Because what is the point of life otherwise? We’re all just Squidgy Aliens.

But not Jesus’ disciples, because, he says, they can be in touch with this other dimension to get whatever answers they need (John 16:23) to make their joy complete (verse 24). And for joy to be complete it can’t be keeling over and dying with no hope of a future, can it?…(new series on Monday: “Why Jesus?…)  

To Joy (part 17)

I have a granddaughter who asks me some tough questions about God and the Bible. She’s puzzled, for instance, as to why God had so many people, including children, killed off in the Old Testament. So we talk and reason together, not only learning from each other, but a lot about each other too. Wonderful times. 

But one day I won’t be around for these animated chats, or be on call any time to help her through her puzzlement. Which made me wonder what I could do now in preparation for that time. And here in John 16:23 was the answer. 

Jesus has been helping his disciples through their puzzlement too (verses 17-19), but he accepts that one day he won’t be with them in person either. When that day comes – or “In that day” as he phrases it in verse 23 – “you will no longer ask me anything.” And if he’d stopped there, well, imagine the reaction my granddaughter would have if I said, “Sorry, old girl, but the day’s coming when I won’t be around and you’ll no longer be able to ask me anything,” and left it at that.  

But Jesus didn’t leave it at that. He said, “Yes, it will be tough (Now is your time of grief, verse 22), but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.”  

So even though he wasn’t with them in person anymore, they would see him again, and in such a way they’d experience an unshakeable joy for the rest of their lives, because they could go “directly to the Father and he’ll give you whatever you ask for by using my name,” verse 23. 

Using his name would be the means by which he would remain alive to them. And this way I come alive to my granddaughter after I’m gone too, because I’ve told her already she too can go to God directly for help. So she can go to the Father and say, “Granpy told me I could come to you directly for answers, so I’m coming in his name. He also told me that when I ask you for help with my puzzlement I am guaranteed an answer from you, because you want my joy to be complete. That joy began when I was able to talk things over with my Grandpa in person, but he said you’ll make my joy complete when I come to you. Granpy said, so in his name here I am.” Just like we can say to the Father, “Jesus said, so in his name here I am”…(continues Friday)

To Joy (part 16)

“Now is your time of grief,” Jesus told his disciples in John 16:22, and what better description of life as humans in the present too? 

Because in this human life of ours there are endless causes of pain and anguish – physical, mental and emotional pain, and the underlying anguish of never quite knowing what’s going to happen next. Our life now is so much like a mother’s labour pains, fraught with the frightening helplessness at things going on inside us and to us that we have no control over. 

To Jesus’ disciples it would feel that way when he was killed. It would leave them absolutely shattered, not only by the overwhelming feeling of loss of him being ripped away from them, but also the frightening helplessness of it all happening so fast and there was nothing they could do about it either. It would leave them emotionally drained, and so mentally numbed that the fishermen among them went back to fishing again, as if nothing in the last three years had happened.

But the encouraging part is that Jesus knew this was how they’d feel, so immediately after he told them, “Now is your time of grief,” he followed it up with: “BUT – I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.” 

Two points to note here: that, first of all, Jesus was concerned for his disciples and wanted to give them hope. He didn’t want them wallowing in gloom. But, secondly, he knew that the only solution to their gloom was himself. It would be seeing him alive again, and realizing their gloom was only temporary. 

And isn’t that the same for us, that we too discover in our gloom that there’s a living Jesus Christ who can get us out of it? And he comes alive to us in doing that for us again and again. 

So after a while it has to dawn on us that he really is alive, because even when we’re utterly helpless and in situations that offer no signs of improvement or solution, we find ourselves with such confidence, hope, peace and joy, that nothing and no one can take them away from us either…(continues Wednesday)