Dave's Diary

Daily Reading: John 14:5-31

This week we’ve been exploring the call to connect to the world around us in order to pour out the Living Water we have received and to make this world a more beautiful, kind and just place. This call is, in many ways, based on the mysterious reality of the Christian life which Jesus described in John 14.

Because the passage narrates an interaction between Jesus and His disciples, with first Thomas, then Philip and then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) asking questions, the passage can feel a bit disjointed. So, let’s pick out the three key ideas Jesus communicated and reflect on them.

Firstly, Jesus explained that the Father was living in Jesus so perfectly that everything Jesus did and said was a manifestation of the Father. Jesus lived so perfectly in step with the Father and His will that everything He did and said expressed the Father’s character, truth, will and work. We might go so far as to say that the Father showed Himself to the world and impacted the world through Jesus.

Secondly, Jesus promised to replicate this kind of relational intimacy with us. He promised that He would come to live within everyone who believes in Him through the person of the Holy Spirit. The life of a believer is a life of Spirit-ministered intimacy with Jesus, and with the Father.

Pause for a moment and consider how wondrous and mysterious it is that through faith in Jesus a mere human being may receive the indwelling Spirit of God and experience lifelong personal intimacy with God the Father and God the Son.

Finally, Jesus explained that believers and followers of Jesus have been given a mission to love and trust the indwelling Jesus so completely that we live in step with His character and will. Then all we do and say will be a manifestation of Jesus and will express Jesus’ character, truth, will and work. We might go so far as to say that Jesus will show Himself to the world and impact the world through us! And we should never forget that his life of manifesting Jesus’ person, love and power to the world is made possible because Jesus is living in us and empowering us by the Holy Spirit.

Heavenly Father, thank You for loving us perfectly, even when we had abandoned and rejected You. Lord Jesus, thank You for manifesting the Father’s love for the world and for each of us so perfectly in Your life – even to the point of dying on Calvary’s Cross. Thank You, Holy Spirit, for coming to live within me, to draw me to intimacy with the Father and with Jesus my Lord. Please empower me to live a Christlike life in my world today, so that Jesus, His life, character, truth, love and power will be poured out through me to establish Your Kingdom in my world as it is in heaven. Amen.