The Counselor

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

THE COUNSELOR

John 14:15-21

15 "If you love me, you will obey what I command. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. 21 Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him." 

NIV

The question is; what did Jesus command? We might have taken this statement of Jesus out of context and made it all around everything he has ever said. However, if we take this statement within the context we have to back up to what he just said about asking him anything in his name, or about doing greater things he has done, or believing he and the Father are one. If obeying every command he has ever given is the condition for receiving the Spirit, then not a single one of us believers would have the Spirit. We could also go back a little more and see that Jesus told us not to let our hearts be troubled but to trust in God and trust in him. This is his teaching which he will talk about again which is why we receive the Counselor to be with us forever. Jesus says the world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. However, we know the Spirit for he lives within us because we received him due to our believing and trusting in Jesus. That is the only condition needed. The Greek word translated command means an authoritative prescription. If we love Jesus, we will follow his prescription for life. He said before long the world will not see him anymore, but we will see him. Because he lives, we also will live. That is the prescription for life. That is what we believe because we love him and that is why he sent the Spirit to be our Counselor, bearing this truth in our spirit, being a seal upon us guarantying our redemption. If eternal life was dependent on our absolute obedience to every command of God, we would never make it to heaven. Even the simplest command of loving God with all our being, and loving our neighbor as ourselves cannot be fully realized in our lives. We fail at that all too often, if we are honest with ourselves. We would be in a real pickle if in order to have the Spirit and eternal life we had to be perfect in our obedience to every command of God. This is not to excuse us from trying, but we have to see that in the context of this teaching of Jesus, the Spirit comes to those Jesus sends him to and those are the ones who love him and trust him, asking him and we know this because we do have the Counselor.