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Hello my dear “Walking with Jesus” friends,
Today is Wednesday, mid-week of the most significant week in human history… Easter week.
While our daily news is flooded with COVID-19 information, and the grim tallies just seem to get worse by the day, Jesus is calling to our world this Easter week. He calls us to consider something that could be life saving…what HE did nearly 2000 years ago, makes it possible for anyone, anywhere, to face this pandemic not in panicked FEAR but in confident, even content FAITH. Now, is that Fact or Fantasy? What do you think?
Jesus calls us, my “Walking with Jesus” friends, to a God-FAITH that empowers us to face this pandemic with confidence that God is IN this pandemic with us. As we’ll see today in John 14, Jesus promised that! Jesus calls us to a God-FAITH that if we end up in a hospital, breathing on a ventilator, God is there and holds our life in His hands. And a God-FAITH that if we succumb to this pandemic, God is there and because of what Jesus accomplished that first Easter, if we have placed our trust in Jesus, God assures us that we will immediately go to heaven to be with Jesus, forever!
This God-FAITH is based on God-FACTS, not political promises, not financial stimulus packages, not truck-loads of “PPE’s” and ventilators, not even religious traditions or rituals or incantations, but based on God Himself and what Jesus said and did that first Easter. Now, how do you respond to these bold God-Fact statements?
I invite you to join me, and the 11 disciples who are with Jesus in the upper room, the evening before He went to the cross. Judas has already left the room in shame, and under the strong influence of Satan. He is finalizing his plan to betray Jesus. Peter is sitting quietly, an unusual posture for Peter. He has been challenged by Jesus to consider that despite his boast of being willing to die to defend Jesus, he will in fact deny that he even knows Jesus, before daylight comes. It’s safe to say a strange sense of anxiety has filled this room. These close friends of Jesus are unsettled. What will Jesus say or do next? What is happening to their ‘status quo’, this evening?
Jesus seizes the moment: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, trust also in Me. In My Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will return and take you to be with Me, so that you also may be where I am. You know the way to where I am going.” (John 14:1-3)
My dear friends, would you consider that Jesus is saying these words TODAY to every place the word COVID-19 strikes fear into hearts? You and I, and nearly 2/3 of the worlds’ population, face a choice today… fear or faith? And because there is no vaccine as yet, nor proven data regarding any oral medication, and because this virus strikes with no warning, often being transmitted from people who FEEL perfectly fine and have no symptoms, but are contagious... FEAR is a reasonable state of mind & heart, and FEAR is nearly paralyzing entire communities.
But, Bible history is filled with God saying to people just like you and me, in situations similar to what we face right now…“Do not fear”. But we can’t just turn the ‘off switch’ on fear… we must counter and defeat fear with something more powerful than fear! So, what is your greatest fear defeating weapon? For us Christians, that fear defeating power is the Easter resurrection power of God!
Jesus defeated death through His death and resurrection! In the days following Easter, we’ll look closely at the Risen Jesus and the things He said and did, as we “Walk with Jesus”.
The resurrected Jesus did return to heaven where He reigns victoriously over everything right now. Jesus receives into His heaven daily, thousands of people who have trusted in Him. They enter His heaven when the moment of their last breath comes here. Jesus is at this moment surrounded by hundreds of millions of Christians who have already preceded us in their ‘departure’ to their eternity in heaven with Him. John 14:1-3 is the foundation of powerful faith TODAY in the face of COVID-19! I’m grasping it tightly, how about you?
Thomas’ words in John 14:5 are shouted today by Billions of people around the globe. May I paraphrase his words for us: “Jesus, we don’t know who You really are, so how can we know the way to heaven.”
And Jesus’ answer, then and now, stands as a rock-solid cornerstone for Fear defeating FAITH: “Jesus answered, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you really knew Me you would know My Father as well…” (John 14:6)
Do you see 4 Fear defeating God-Facts?
1. Jesus is and speaks God’s life-saving truth about everything.
2. Jesus is the ONLY way to an authentic relationship with God with my sin debt paid in full.
3. My sin-forgiven relationship with Jesus gives me life to the fullest here and now, and assures me of eternal life in heaven.
4. In my relationship with Jesus, I am also coming to know God.
Jesus then said to His friends: “Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father. The words I say to you are not just My own. Rather it is the Father living in Me, who is doing His work….believe on the evidence of the miracles.” (John 14:9-11) Jesus is “Immanuel”, God with us, and He came to earth, in part, so we would know God and understand the supernatural relationship God wants with us who trust our lives to Jesus.
Jesus next said: “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in Me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in My name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask Me for anything and I will do it.” (John 14:12-14) Jesus was explaining that His relationship with the men who had been with Him would not end when He left them as He returned to heaven. Rather, Jesus would soon be with the Father in heaven, yet continuing the Father’s work here on earth THROUGH these men who trusted Jesus fully, as they would carry on the work Jesus had begun here on earth.
Now that was outright confusing to them. How could they, ordinary men like you and me, fishermen, a tax collector, just ordinary guys…how could they possibly do what they had seen Jesus do, or say the things they’d heard Jesus say, especially if Jesus was not here helping them? It was humanly impossible! Can you imagine their faces, their shaking heads, the doubt rising up in their minds and hearts?
But then Jesus gave them the secret. For the next several minutes Jesus began to explain the miracle of the Holy Spirit of God who would come to live within them, and empower them as He had been living within and empowering Jesus. “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counselor,to be with you forever – the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept Him because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you know Him for He lives with you and will be in you…The Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you, My peace I give you. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” (John 14:16,17,26,27)
These disciples, like most all Jewish men, had all studied the Old Testament when they were boys, and heard it read every Sabbath in Synagogue. They knew the Spirit of God had often been sent by God to some of their great heroes in the past for specific times of empowerment: Moses was empowered by the Spirit of God in leading the Hebrews in the Exodus journey (Numbers 11:16,17); Gideon had been empowered by the Spirit of God for a remarkable Israel rescuing battle (Judges 6:34). The Holy Spirit had come upon Israel’s first king Saul (1 Samuel 10:10), and also upon king David (1 Samuel 16:13). Sometimes the Spirit of God had come upon a prophet for a specific message to be given to God’s people (2 Chronicles 15:1).
But Jesus was not talking about a temporary anointing of the Spirit of God, Jesus was talking about the Holy Spirit of God residing within followers of Jesus permanently. Jesus referred to the Spirit of God as ‘another Counselor’. He meant, ‘another Counselor like Me, sent from God the Father to live within you, as He has within Me, for the purpose of teaching you, guiding you, giving you God’s peace, empowering you to do what the Father leads you to do…as the Holy Spirit has done in Me.’
It was another ‘defining moment’ for these men! What Jesus was saying was mind-boggling. It was beyond even their wildest dreams. They had watched Jesus closely for months. To think that they could come anywhere close to living the life He had been living, was beyond their comprehension…and yet He had said it was God’s desire, God’s intention for them. But, how could it happen?
I wonder if you noticed Jesus explained in John 14 that there was a key to this: “If you love Me, you’ll obey what I command…Whoever has My commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves Me. He who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I too will love Him and show myself to Him…If anyone loves Me, he will obey My teachings. My Father will love him and We will come and make Our home with him. He who does NOT love Me will not obey My teachings. These words you hear are not My own; they belong to the Father who sent Me.” (John 14:15,21,23,24)
As Jesus said these things, I’m sure the disciples remembered the times Jesus would leave them to go out alone into the night, or up on a hillside, to talk with His Father in heaven, to be sure His heart was fully aligned with the heart of His heavenly Father, Almighty God. The action of obedience is inseparably linked with the choice of love.
If we do not obey God, it is a reflection of our wandering hearts which are not loving God in response to His great love for us! Disobedience is fundamentally a love problem and a pride problem. As our love for God moves away from Him toward other things, we elevate ourselves and our wisdom above God and we follow our own desires as we set God aside. If this continues, soon, there is no room for God in our lives, for we’ve filled our lives with our own plans, the pursuits of our pleasures.
With Judas having left the room to pursue his evil plan, and Peter sitting silent in the warning Jesus spoke to him, and the rest of the disciples stunned by what they’ve heard, Jesus concluded this powerful chapter with this strong statement: “I will not speak with you much longer, for the prince of this world (Satan) is coming. He has no hold on Me, but the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what My Father has commanded Me.” (John 14:30,31) Jesus is again modeling for His friends how to battle Satan, the great enemy of our souls: Unconditional love of our heavenly Father and unwavering obedience to His leading. Jesus had spoken it, and had shown it repeatedly but now in these next hours, Jesus would prove both His love and His obedience to the fullest extent, the extreme, even to His death.
I urge you to read this chapter two or three times my friends. Ask the Holy Spirit to teach you all that Jesus wants you to learn from His words. Take some time to pray today, expressing your heart to God your heavenly Father, to Jesus Christ your Savior and Lord, and to the Holy Spirit of God, your resident Counselor. What is God wanting to do in your life this Easter week as the words of Jesus penetrate deeply into our souls?
Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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