Meeting Jesus

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

MEETING JESUS

John 12:20-26

20 Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the Feast. 21 They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. "Sir," they said, "we would like to see Jesus." 22 Philip went to tell Andrew; Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus. 23 Jesus replied, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. 25 The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.

NIV

It seems a strange response from Jesus to a request for some people to meet him, yet he was saying the hour or time for me to meet people personally is over for now is the time for me to be available for everyone to meet me. Although it would have been in incredible experience to have walked this earth with Jesus, he could only touch people one on one in his human form, a single seed. But since he fell to the ground and died, sort of, as he actually was lifted up on a tree, to fulfill prophesy, he has produced many seeds. People all over the world are now a part of the family of God, because of this hour Jesus was speaking about. He needed to do what he did so that not just a few Greeks could meet him, but all Jews, all Greeks, all Gentiles could meet him. Then he goes on to explain how everyone must come to him in order to actually meet him. It is not possible to truly meet Jesus if we love our life here on earth. This is to say that as long as we cling to the life here in earth, clinging to the ways of the world, clinging to the pursuit of success, the pursuit of accumulation of material goods, the need of recognition, praise, and self-worth, along with a whole host of worldly attitudes we will never actually meet Jesus in person, except to be cast into the lake of burning sulfur. But if we can cast aside all those pursuits, actually in some sense despising them, we will meet Jesus, we will inherit eternal life. True, we must live here, and work here, and purchase the material goods needed for life here. True, as we follow Jesus, as we seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, he will add all these things onto us, we will have in fact all these things. However, our priorities cannot be these things, our number one, and only priority needs to be the kingdom of God. If we serve Jesus we must follow him and conversely if we follow him we must serve him. If we serve our own life, we will have no life, but if we serve Jesus we will be where he is, we will have eternal life in the presence of God. But we must also be careful not to take pride in serving Jesus. We are told to humble ourselves therefore before God and he will lift us up. We cannot be prideful in our being obedient to the Word of God, or to the rules and regulations of our denomination, or the Law. We cannot even think of ourselves as being good Christians, as there is no such thing. We are either a believer, a Christian or we are not. There is no level of Christian, bad, good, better or best, there is only being one, a sinner saved by grace. If we take pride in thinking how good we are, then it might be that we are actually in love with our life here. If we want to meet Jesus we need to focus on him, not on us. Can we enjoy the things of the world while focusing on Jesus? If they are from his hand it would seems so, but we should be careful to testify to that as well. All we are, all we have is because of Jesus, not because of us. That is losing this life and gaining eternal life. That is meeting Jesus.