DEVOTION
THE GOSPEL
OF JOHN
DISCIPLES OF
JESUS
John 8:31-32
31 To the
Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you
hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the
truth, and the truth will set you free."
NIV
We are in
the midst of a very long discussion between Jesus and the Pharisees, as well as
the Jews who believed what he had already said. The conversation is going to
turn a little ugly, at least for these Jews, but we should deal with one truth
at a time so we have to take this conversation one bite at a time. Here Jesus
is telling them and us that in order to truly be a disciple of his we need to
hold to his teaching and by doing so we will know the truth and that truth will
set us free. Now in the rest of this conversation we will see the discussion
about being free, and being slaves, and it is difficult to leave that out of
this truth, but for now we should focus on being disciples. We do not often
call ourselves disciples, but rather believers, well actually not even
believers, as we usually call ourselves Christians. Some of us really call
ourselves by our denominational affiliation, such as, “I am Nazarene”, “I am a
Catholic”, “I am a Baptist”, but few if any of us call ourselves Disciples of
Christ. Is that because we would rather hold to our denominational doctrines,
their rules and regulations than to the teachings of Jesus? Perhaps some think
the denomination they have chosen to be a partner with is the only one who
knows the truth. If there are so many differences between all the denominations
then is it possible many of them do not know the truth and therefore those
people who adhere to their doctrines are not free because their do not know the
truth? It would seem the only truth that can set us free is the truth of
Jesus’s teaching. Yes there are a lot of instructions for life within all the
letters written by the apostles that we should pay careful attention to, but
those instructions do not set us free. We need to hold to the teaching of Jesus
if we truly want to be free. We know that truth, we all know that truth, we all
know that Jesus came from heaven, the Divine came to earth as a man to live and
die as a man so that he could satisfy the Fathers need for Justice, to take our
sin away, to set us free from sin. His teaching is simple, believe in him and
we will be free of death and have eternal life. Why then should we not just
call ourselves Disciples of Jesus?
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