My Father

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

MY FATHER

John 5:16-23

16 So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him. 17 Jesus said to them, "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working."  18 For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

19 Jesus gave them this answer: "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, to your amazement he will show him even greater things than these. 21 For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. 22 Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, 23 that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.

NIV

There is so much more to the answer that Jesus gave them, but we have to take it in smaller sections otherwise we would be overwhelmed and need to write for hours to examine all the truths within his complete answer. First, let us consider this first shorter response by Jesus about the Jews persecuting Jesus for doing work on the Sabbath. Healing someone evidently was considered work and how dare he do such a thing on the Sabbath. He should have at least waited until sundown or the next day, but curing a man who had been lame for thirty-eight years, having compassion, demonstrating grace, showing mercy on the Sabbath, how could be dare violate the law. Jesus reminds them His Father is always at work, even on the Sabbath. But what made such a stir, as he said “My Father”. This is a big problem as the Jews would not even pronoun the name of God and Jesus referred to God as His Father and making himself as an equal with God. We can just imagine how upset they were. Everything they have believed all their lives about God, about JHWH was being challenged. They were not only living under the Law given to Moses but had put additional traditions upon themselves so their form of the Law was extremely restrictive. It seems they did not actually have the love of God in their hearts, but rather they had the love of the Law in their hearts. They believed by strict obedience to the Law, they could find righteousness, but who of them was without sin? So then none of them could ever attain righteousness unless they held to their self-righteousness. It is a good thing, no a wonderful thing that Jesus fulfilled all the Law so that because we are in Christ, we too have fulfilled all the Law and therefore are indeed righteous in the sight of God. We do not live by the Law, we live in Christ, who calls God, His Father, and therefore God is our Father as well. Now, that does not mean we are equal with God, as Jesus is. But what it means is that because we are in Christ, we have the right to be called children of God, and therefore he is Our Father. We have an intensely personal relationship with Our Father. The problem which can exist, just as it did for those Jews, is we can add some of our own traditions to our religion, creating our own form of law. We label it a religion because that type of mindset is religious in nature, but it may well not have anything to do with our relationship with Our Father. Any act, even a secular act, if performed on a regular basis can be defined as doing it religiously. However, if we have a personal relationship with Our Father, then we live in his family and do what he tells us to do and have the right of being a member of the family of God. Let us not be so bold as to tell God what we can and cannot do, but simply let him tell us what he wants us to do and if he desires us to stop doing anything, he will tell us that too. Just as Jesus told the lame man, stop sinning, that pretty much covers it all.  But again, the problem, just like the Jews, we have determined what sin is, what we are not supposed to do. It simply comes down to love My Father.