Hearing from Heaven

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

HEARING FROM HEAVEN

John 12:27-33

27 "Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name!" Then a voice came from heaven, "I have glorified it, and will glorify it again." 29 The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him. 30 Jesus said, "This voice was for your benefit, not mine. 31 Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. 32 But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself."  33 He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.

NIV

Once more a voice from heaven, once more the Father speaks audible so the world hears him. He spoke at the baptism of his Son and now he speaks again assuring his Son that the Father will be glorified and that was the prayer of Jesus. Yes, he was troubled and who would not be troubled knowing what was coming. He knew he was going to be hung on a cross, the Roman form of execution. This was far worse than a firing squad, electric chair, or now our compassionate lethal injection method. The cross was a slow agonizing painful death of suffocation, so why wouldn’t he be troubled. But he does not pray that the Father would save him from this, no he prays that the Father’s name would be gloried through all this. A lesson we might well learn when we face any sort of trouble in our lives. So often we see Christians with long faces, almost stooped over physically, when facing hardships and praying God will give them relief, yet this is the time we should be praying that God’s name will be glorified, that is if we learn this lesson. Could we face anything worse than what Jesus was facing? True, he was the Son of God, divine in every way, yet he was also fully human, with the ability to feel all the emotions, all the pain and suffering we could face. With all this ahead of him, he still wanted the Father to be gloried. God answered and he did so man could hear him. Twice, this man has heard that audible voice, twice God spoke to the world out loud, and twice, to this point, he has spoken out loud to me. Both times his name was glorified; both times I have and continue to testify to the glory of his name. This is the lesson for us, and we should always give glory to the name of God the Father for all that he does for us, in us and through us. We cannot face anything in life worse than the cross, so no matter what we face in life, we must be ready, willing and able to glorify the name of God. Perhaps we might even hear his voice once again. Yet we also see here that the voice of God was not for the benefit of Jesus, but it was for the benefit of those who heard him. How could they ever deny now that God the Father is in heaven, and that Jesus is the Son of God? How could we ever deny or doubt there is a God in Heaven, watching over us, providing for us, keeping his hand upon our lives, since we have heard from heaven?