Living in God

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

LIVING IN GOD

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

Although we considered this loving and obeying his command, and considering that command was to ask him for anything in his name, we also have to look a little closer at the Spirit of truth, as well as Jesus leaving and coming back. It is also interesting that only those who love him will see him. Jesus is surely speaking about the fact that he is going to the cross and then the grave, but also about his resurrection and ascension. He is going to leave the earth, return to Heaven and send the Holy Spirit to be with us, within us, until He returns to retrieve us and take us to where He is. So when he says the world will not see Him, but we will, what exactly or when exactly is he speaking about? Maybe he was talking about the days before His ascension. That he was going to reveal himself to his disciples, that they would see him, but as far as that rest of the world, such as the Pharisees and chief priests who were instrumental in his crucifixion would not see him. As far as they were concerned he was still dead, and that his disciples had stolen his body and hide it somewhere. That might work, except for the fact he also said that because he lives we will live also. Now, maybe he was only speaking of his resurrection. Because he is resurrected to life, after death, we too will be resurrected after death. The world will not be resurrected, they will not see him, but we will. After we are resurrected we will, without doubt, see for ourselves, not just by faith, but with our eyes, that Jesus is in the Father and the Father is in Jesus and that Jesus is in us. But there can also be another seeing which might also be applied. Jesus could be talking about the day he will send the Spirit of truth. On that day we will be able to see the truth. We will be able to know that Jesus is in the Father and the Father is in Jesus and Jesus is in us. The Spirit will reveal and as we know, he has revealed all this truth to us. The world does not accept this Spirit of truth, they reject him, in fact. They do not believe in what we call a Spirit-filled life. But because we love Jesus, we have received the Spirit with all his power, all his gifts, all his fruit in fullness. He is at work within us growing us, helping us to continually grow in both our faith and knowledge of his wisdom. He will help us grow in his power and mighty strength. There is so much more for us, then we may even imagine because of the work of the Spirit within us. Maybe we have hampered his efforts by trying to do so much in our own abilities. It is possible if we let go, if we do not look to our works, the Spirit will have more accessibility to our spirit and we will actually have more truth, more power, more might, because it will be His, then we could ever imagine. Maybe we look too much at our education, our degrees, our study, our knowledge, our faith, then we should. Instead, we should set aside all our self and totally rely on the Spirit of truth. There have been some negative comments made toward those who were called revelation knowledge preachers. These were and are people who may not have had a formal education in some denominational seminary, but have great knowledge that has been revealed to them by the Spirit of truth. Having the Spirit of truth dwelling within us, we surely are able to see Jesus, and we surely are able to see the truth of Jesus being in the Father and the Father in Jesus and that Jesus is in us because God is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Therefore we have God in his fullness within, and we should live like it, living in his fullness, in his power, in his might, in his knowledge and wisdom, in his life. Oh, how we could go on and on about this. The fact is we do live in God, and He lives in us.