As I sit at Jesus‘s feet this morning – looking up at His face – waves of love flow over me, yet I remind myself I cannot rely on my emotions because emotions are volatile, I must rely on a choice I make daily, even more often a choice I make regularly through the day – to love God, through Jesus with all my heart, body, soul and mind and to let that choice determine my actions, attitudes and words – praise the Lord hallelujah!
”You are coming to understand the statement in 1 John – “God is love”. If you see Me as Love personified you will experience every part of your relationship with Me as My expression of love to you. This will make it easier for you to respond in love to Me. Even as the high point of the demonstration of that fact was My death upon the cross, it continues to flow into every part of society, into every heart that responds, calling the many who are lost to come and drink of the Living Water from the Eternal Fountain. Yes make a decision to respond to Me in love and I will promise to overwhelm you with every aspect of My love for you”.
Now to John 8:12 – 20. We need to remind ourselves that Jesus has been speaking at the temple during the feast of Tabernacles. One of the traditional customs at that feast was to light a strong light in the temple to remind the people of the pillar of Fire which God used to guide His people through the desert on their way from Egypt to the Promised Land. Here Jesus identifies Himself as the reality of that light to show once again His fulfilment of a picture from the Old Covenant.
This is also one of the “ I Am” statements in John’s Gospel, which show that Jesus is identifying himself with the name that God gave to Moses when He met him. Remember: “I am who I am.” The other things to note in that sentence in verse 12: “Who ever follows me will never walk in the darkness…” are firstly that in the Greek the word never is a double negative which actually reads, “never, no never will you walk in the darkness. Then the Greek word which is translated as follow has a much stronger sense about it than the English. It involves more than just walking behind a person but denotes embracing the values of the one whom you are following and actively participating in his purpose.
From vs 13 to 18, the focus is very much on Jesus‘s identity. The Pharisees challenge him saying that He has no standing to testify about Himself as to who He is, so Jesus calls as His second witness his Father. The passage does not identify how the Father is the second witness but he is probably calling on the supernatural signs that He has been performing as the witness of His Father to prove His identity
What is important is His statement in verse 19 where He challenges them, suggesting that the reason they don’t accept His identity is because they actually don’t know the Father. Later in his gospel John is going to expand on how important this concept is. It is actually impossible to fully grasp the identity of Jesus without coming to know God as Father. This is the great barrier that prevents the Pharisees from understanding who Jesus is and how His own testimony points to His identity.
Once again we see the interesting reference in the last verse to the appropriate timing of Jesus‘s life on Earth. It is easily possible for us to think that it is only Jesus’s life which was appropriately timed, where in actual fact everyone of us has a time schedule with God which is hugely comforting.
So as we wrap this up I ask myself the question who do I really think Jesus is and I’m I truly following him according to the biblical concept? I am hugely comforted by Jesus’ promise that I will never walk in the dark again. I am also challenged as to my relationship with the Father because knowing God is a privilege we have through Jesus and that relationship with Jesus and the Father is the basis of our lives with Him which constantly needs to be practised and refreshed.
May you all experience God’s closeness and love till next week.
Amen, Christ is the only and true light in this dark world. So many people are in a deep depression because they look to the world and not to Christ, the eternal light. There is no other light which can give us comfort. Christ alone has to be our focus. ” You make known to me the path of life, in Your presence is fullness of joy, at Your right hand are pleasures for evermore ‘ Psalm 16 . 11 All Glory, power , dominion and authority be to our Holy Lord Jesus Christ forever and ever 🙏 Amen 🙏 🙌
How often have I heard ” We were created randomly and nobody is giving a damn about us!” This is the opinion of many doctors and psychologistss who are supposed to heal, help and comfort other human beings.