John 15:26 – 16:15
If you were born in a Nation where you have had the freedom
to use your skills and gifts and have the desire to advance, you are blessed! If you were a common person and especially if
you were a woman when Jesus walked on planet earth, you were not expected to be
any more than the role of your parents.
That is so foreign to this writer, but what Jesus is telling His
disciples is that everyone counts; but that being His disciple will cost you. He is telling His disciples that conflict with
friends, family and the people in your workplace, will ignore you as if you
were dead. And the ones who do not
ignore you may try to kill you and in doing so they believe that act will gain
favor with God. “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to
you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will
bear witness about me. I have said all these things to you to keep you from
falling away. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is
coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And
they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me. But I
have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that
I told them to you. I did not say these
things to you from the beginning, because I was with you.” (John 15:26 -16:1-4) (Note:
that sounds very familiar to what Muslims are teaching about anyone outside of
there misguided religion.)
Jesus has just told us that because they choose darkness
over light because their deeds were evil, in John 3:19; and that His job was
finished on planet earth, that He was returning to His rightful place at the
right hand of the Father, and that He was sending us a Helper. So it is important for us to grasp that Jesus
was not just talking to His disciple but to you and me. We pick-up the words of Jesus in John
16:5-15, “But now I am going to him who sent me, and
none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ But because I have said these
things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless, I tell you the
truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the
Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. And when he
comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment:
concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness,
because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; concerning judgment,
because the ruler of this world is judged.
I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.
When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he
will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and
he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he
will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine;
therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”
This writer is beginning to grasp that his hope is not and
will not be found in man, nor in government, education, wealth, in my standing
or level of importance in society, not even in my birthright; only in my
relationship with the Son of God. And
that Jesus has taken on skin and fully understands my need to be dependent; Jesus
has sent the Helper, the Spirit of Truth, to guide me into all truth. Can you ask for anything better, this was
Jesus’ request of the Father for you and me: “I do not
ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their
word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you,
that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent
me.” (John 17:20-21
ESV)
From the Back Porch,
Bob Rice
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