Month: May 2025

Take my heart and let it forever be your royal throne.

“While you offer Me your heart, I have already captured it within the warmth of My love for you. You would never be able to truly give Me all your love if I had not made it possible. The key has always been the death on the cross of My precious son Jesus. As His heart was ripped out by the sin of the world and My irrepressible wrath being spent there on him it opened a glorious golden highway for My love to flow to you and whoever would desire to have it. It is only then, as My love overwhelms you that you can truly release your heart to Me. But, yes I receive your heart, your love and adoration with great pleasure this morning. However do not keep My love to yourself alone, share it with those you come into contact with so they can also benefit from it.”

We proceed today with John in 16:16-24. John has been explaining in the last three chapters how the disciples’ and our relationship with God would proceed after He departs. He now comes to the hard part. He has first got to go to the cross before this will be put into place. Although He has been warning them for some time that this must happen, they had obviously not fully taken it in. I suppose among other reasons the almost automatic response we often have as humans to bad news is denial, shutting out the full implications from our minds.

After being homeschooled on a cosy Karoo farm until at 11 years of age in standard 6 I was sent 500 km away to a very strict boarding school in P.E. I had never learned to relate to other children and easily became the target of all the bullies. The next 5 years were a nightmare of rejection and loneliness which I finally escaped from with huge relief. I have often thought back on that time and have thanked God that He took me through that so that I could, in some very small measure also experience the rejection Jesus must have felt while here with us on earth.

So here in this passage Jesus is trying to share with His close friends what was about to happen. Yet He wanted them to get this news into the full perspective of the bigger picture. I like the way He uses childbirth as an example of huge joy following great pain. Every woman who has had a child will attest to this amazing feeling of joy after the intense pain of the birth process.

The most comforting words are in vs 22 “So with you: Now is the time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice and no one will take that away from you”. The joy of the full realisation of what Jesus accomplished on our behalf transcends any pain we may ever feel after that. This is a joy which is really supernatural and cannot be explained to someone outside of the kingdom. It is the final outcome, the background music as it were of our whole relationship with our loving Father through Jesus.

The next two verses complete the picture with a repetition of His promise of the Father’s attitude towards them and to us as His very own adopted children. Ask and keep on asking and as He responds it will flow into that supernatural joy. The joy of the knowledge of a secure and loving relationship which will extend beyond our human suffering into all eternity.

I have realised, especially lately that I have to remind myself of that joy as often as possible. It is so easy to focus one’s mind on the difficulties and fears of this world that they swallow up the very reality of that joy that God wants us to experience. Rejoice in the Lord always is the instruction that Paul gives in Philippians ch 4:4 but then he goes on to admonish us to think correctly in vs 10ff. This actually develops that part of your brain so that it can become your default way of thinking. But it takes practice. But, again we have a “Helper” and coach who continually encourages us.

This section on discipleship has brought me to see this as a whole package which should guide us in our everyday walk with God. So let’s continue to practice. Until I see you all again next week, may you be blessed.

Oh taste and see that the Lord is good (Psalm 34). Lord please touch all my senses, fill this room with the fragrance of the Rrose of Sharon, with the warmth of your love. Cause all my senses to come alive to you so that I can worship you with all of me.

”Yes, I am all around you and want you to know that, not only by faith but also experientially. That is why you have been given all your senses so that you can experience Me in all My fullness. Maybe you can’t see Me physically but you can see Me spiritually as you close your eyes and allow Me to illuminate your imagination. I am always present with you, in the beauty and fragrance of the flowers, in the warmth of the touch of a loved one, in the sunset My glory sets your eyes aglow. Allow yourself to truly taste and see and experience Me in My person not just in the words on a page. I am here in all My glory ready to make your senses come alive and be receptive to Me so that you can fully worship Me.”

As we come to the end of John’s teaching from Jesus on the full understanding of what the disciples (and our) continuing relationship with Jesus is going to consist of we reach the conclusion of this teaching as we read John 16:2-16, ending with the the words which must have been like an arctic wind to them in vs 16: In a little while you won’t see me. Yet the vs ends with the strange promise: after a little while you will see me. This introduces the next section as He reveals what this was to meant to them.

So way back in the last part of vs 3 He introduces this thought: I was still with you. And then in vs 4 Now I am going to go to Him who sent Me. This must have been devastating to these men. Put yourselves in their shoes. They had left everything to follow Jesus. He had promised them, and they believed Him when He said that He was going to introduce God’s kingdom and in fact, He was going to be the ultimate King. Now He is speaking of leaving them apparently with very little to show for His time with them. Little did they realize that the climax of Jesus’ life and in fact the whole of history was on the verge of taking place. The main reason He came – to die for our sins and open the way to the Father was about to happen.

From our perspective we can now understand what He was telling them and we can appreciate the provision God had planned from the beginning for when Jesus would leave the earth. Obviously Jesus in His humanity could only be in one place at a time and therefore His ministry would always be limited to where He was. So God’s plan was to send the Holy Spirit to replace and continue Jesus’ ministry. He would be able to be everywhere and minister in multiple places at the same time. In fact the world would discover after Pentecost that He would not only be present everywhere, but that He would actually indwell every born again believer enabling him/her to live their Christian life.

So in a very compact way John gathers together the teaching on main ways that the Counselor would work fro then on. Why don’t you read this paragraph and see all the ways He is depicted as going to be working?

Let us look if we can pick up the teaching: Three things mentioned in vs 8 He will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgement.

His first great work would be to convict the world of the importance of their culpability of sin. And notice the very basic and all pervading cause of sin is “unbelief”. It is because we don’t believe in the triune God that all other wrongdoing flows. So the Holy Spirit convicts each sinner with the knowledge of the need to come to faith in God so that their sin can be dealt with.

Then righteousness. Jesus’ departure means He is going to be removed from the scene and the Spirit must take over in directing every believer on true righteousness. How to live and behave correctly .

Then lastly judgment. He reminds us that we are being held responsible for our behaviour because there is one who judges every move, every thought we have, we will be culpable for. all the wrong that is done. He brings the Devil in here because he is the ultimate deceiver.

Furthermore the Spirit is going to carry on teaching where Jesus has left off. Today we have God’s word in writing but it is only as the Holy Spirit interprets it to us that it truly comes alive and has the power to change us. And the purpose of all this? Vs 14 to bring Jesus all the glory. So the Spirit does not seek glory for Himself but opens the door so that all the glory is poured out for Jesus and the Father.

The paragraph ends with the most beautiful summary of the trinity in vs15.

Well, welcome to the Holy Spirit the most import companion we all have representing Jesus to us continually in our lives. I was once again convicted as to how seldom I was aware of this on a moment by moment basis. How do you personally experience Him and the work He is doing in your lives?

God bless till next week dear loved ones.

Amazing Love how can it be that thou my God should die for me.

” Yes you should be truly amazed. The King of creation, the ultimate Father, the personal Shepherd – prepared to die for you, yes for you personally. I came to die for all of My creation to open the way for true fellowship which I have longed for from the beginning. Fellowship based not with a being who like a puppet has been created to obey everything he is told to do, but fellowship which is based on a choice – a choice to have fellowship with Me rather than claim the heart of fellowship for himself. Yet at the same time I have been wooing you and every other human into a love relationship with Me. So I have used my death on a cross as the ultimate love gift to you and every person who would receive it and enter into a marriage with Me as the Bridegroom.”

As John comes to the conclusion of the extensive teaching of Jesus on what it is going to mean to have a relationship with God through Him we come to a less pleasant aspect of what this fellowship will bring. Read John 15:18 – 16:4.

The theme of this teaching on relationship with Him moves now to another aspect of what this fellowship with Jesus is going to bring. The hate and rejection of the world. Being a disciple of Jesus is going to change you. That is the definite promise of the last few chapters. This change which is going to happen will not always be welcomed in the world. While on the one hand our love for each other and for the world should attract the interest and desire of the world, it often has exactly the opposite effect on many who embrace the values of the world.

From the beginning Jesus was rejected by many for various reasons. Behind it all of course we see Satan’s hand, but even without his influence many rejected Him. In today’s passage Jesus warns His disciples, that is you and I, that if we are like Him we must expect rejection and even hate from many as well as we follow Him. Of course we don’t experience it to the same degree and maybe as openly as we may think, but the promise is clear that if we follow Jesus as a branch of the Vine we can expect that to provoke feelings of hate from many in the world. This is another of the great enigmas of our faith. While Jesus’ love expressed through our actions and speech may attract some it often has the opposite effect on others.

The frightening thing is that if they hate you for demonstrating your Christian love they are actually ultimately rejecting God Himself vs 23. We should be careful though of not being the cause of that hate through the way we represent our Christianity. I am thinking here of brothers and sisters who are pharisaically judgmental in the way they treat outsiders. No one becomes a Christian by being told how evil they are. Of course we need to take a stand on open sin, but ultimately it is the Spirit that convicts and draws people to the love you are showing them. So in vv 26 and 27 we are reminded of the very real work of the Spirit, the Counselor in carrying you along in your testimony of God’s love. More on that next week.

My personal experience over time has been that the more active I am at any time with kingdom affairs the more likely I will be the focus of Satan’s attacks, often mediated by unsuspecting people. The original apostles were going to face huge opposition and rejection with most of them actually dying because of their faith. Jesus is warning them, but His warning goes down the ages and in many places Christians face huge persecution even today. I call on you all to think of these people in your prayers, while being warned not to take it personally if you face rejection in your personal life. We need to be continually conscious that we are involved in a very real if mostly unseen battle with the Evil one and we should constantly be on the alert for his whiles and ways. His aim is to bring discouragement and hopelessness and to make us ineffectual as witnesses.

We must also remember that Jesus has overcome Satan and therefore the victory has already been won although the battle rages on. So let us end by remembering Paul’s words in Philippians to “rejoice in the Lord always” and not let Satan have the satisfaction of seeing us discouraged. On that bright note may the Lord bless each one of you till next week.

Take my heart Lord prone to wander and seal it for thy grace above. My heart is on the loose Lord – only you can fasten it upon yourself.

”Just as all the rest of you, every little cell in your body, your heart was sculpted by me, deep in your mother’s womb. My eye was on it as also on the rest of you as I planned our love story together. To promote that love and see it flourish growing as a beautiful bud into a full bloom drawing it ever nearer to Me here in the heavenly realms. That has given Me such pleasure and such joy as does every other true son and daughter in My kingdom. Yes your heart may be prone to wander, but your deep desire as I measure it, is to fix it on Me and so I am busy all the time moulding and drawing that deepest part of your motivation into our love story which will be brought to a climax when you come to meet Me Face-to-face.”

We pick up this beautiful relationship picture of a vine as we continue to read in John 15:7-17. Over all this Jesus reveals an important purpose of this relationship story: That Jesus’s joy in us will make our joy complete vs 11. It may be that we see our role in keeping our side of the relationship as a bit onerous, but Jesus wants it to be a continuous, growing experience of Joy for us. Hence Paul could say in Philippians, Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice. Let us look now at the various components of our relationship with Him as revealed in this section.

Firstly, Jesus’s promises: vs 9 He has loved us, just as the Father has loved us.

Vv 7, 16 Whatever we ask (within this relationship) He will give us.

Vs 14, We are His friends.

v 15, Everything He has learned from the Father He has revealed to us. This is a wonderful promise of the completeness of His word.

v 16, He chose us we did not choose Him. He has always taken the initiative in our love story.

v 16 He has appointed the place for us to be where we will be able to produce the most fruit.

Then within this relationship He has also pointed out what our responsibilities are to be: We are to remain in Him v 7, in His love v 9. This is revealed by us keeping His commands, v 10, 12.

By remaining in Him (I like the old translation ‘abide’, speaks of a whole lifestyle), we will be able to produce fruit. It seems as I stand back, that the ultimate purpose of His relationship is revealed by our producing fruit. He repeats this several times vv 2, 4, 5, 8, 16. In fact v16 sums it up “I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit – fruit that will last” . It is important to notice that while it is our responsibility to produce fruit, it is the natural result flowing from a healthy covenant relationship where we continue to abide in Jesus

He does not really explain exactly what He means by fruit except to emphasize the importance of Love. Taking and appreciating the Father’s love and demonstrating it by loving one another. This echoes His word in 13:5 “By this will all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” . It seems our life under the new covenant is covered by this command, from which all the other’s flow.

What an appeal, what a promise, what a joy to be able to be part of this. To have a real, viable relationship with the Living God through His Son who opened this way and sent His Spirit to mediate all this for us. I am almost overwhelmed by the thought of all this as it comes rushing in to my consciousness and understanding. Why don’t you meditate on it and allow the pictures to become part of your whole default being? And ….. let’s all keep abiding in Him. God bless till next week.