My Maker and my King I owe all to thee.
“It is good to set yourself aside as you meet with Me so that you can clearly hear what I have to say to you. It is so easy to do good things, but in the process have the attitude that you are seeking to make a name for yourself. So it is good to humble yourself in My presence and allow your compass to be reset so that I am your True North and the light by which you live. I am that light which illuminates your life, both from outside as well as inside. It is not necessary to generate a light for yourself. Allow yourself to sink into My arms as you remind yourself that I am your Maker and your King and you do owe everything to Me because you belong to Me.”
As I was reading the next passage from John’s gospel story, I felt almost as if I was entering a holy space as we approach the central point of the whole Message of God collected in the bible. So we take up the story as Jesus is taken to Pilate: John 18:28-40.
This section, deals with Jesus’s interaction with Pontius Pilate, the Roman prelate who held the power of life and death over Jesus. But did he really? Jesus makes it quite clear that, while he had the legal right to pronounce a death sentence, this right had been given him by none other than God Himself. V 36.
Pilate, a really evil man, who was later banished and ended his life by suicide, is merely the tool which God has used to continue to work out His redemption plan.
In this interaction with Jesus one can sense how Jesus was ultimately in control of the conversation, despite Pilate’s superior position. The central point of this passage lies in the words of Jesus in vv 36,37. Especially the statement: “For this reason I was born”. What Jesus says about His Kingdom is so important. It was important then. As John uses this to remind the reader thatJesus’s program was far greater than just an insurrection in Israel.
It is just as important for us today to remember this central fact. God’s kingdom, while hugely real, operates on a different level, an unseen level, to what we see in the world. It is a global kingdom, crossing all lines of state. The members of that kingdom are made up of every one who is a true “born again” believer. The main law of that kingdom is Love. Love for the King and flowing from that love for each of the other members of the kingdom. All the other laws flow from that central one.
The key that was to unlock this new kingdom lay at the door now. As we approach the inevitable and awful mistreatment of this King, it is hard to see how this was going to be the greatest moment of Jesus glorification. But we will come to that later. John just wants the reader to place himself into this scene and experience something of its awfulness as the story rises to its climax.
The other thing that struck me here is the incredible, vitriolic hate, expressed against this innocent man. This was no doubt a sign of the intense spiritual battle that was going on in the “heavenly realms” and being expressed here. Although Jesus conquered the “Evil one” on the cross we are still being drawn into his rearguard action, aimed at destroying the Kingdom by destroying every member. Read Revelation ch 12 for a very picturesque description of what is going on even now.
It is important that we recognise that this spiritual battle is still going on so that we can take our stand against the Evil One, (1 Peter 5:8) and not be mislead by his attractive lies.
With that, make sure Jesus is your True North and have a blessed week.