God Still Speaks

In verse 7, He talks about abiding in the word and the word abiding in us. Again in verse 9 we see the word abide. This time he are told to abide in His love. In spanish the word abide is "permanecer" where we see permanate. When the Word is permanate in us and we are permanate in the Word and then to be permanate in His love. This is more than a "Sunday" relationship with God, its a 24/7 walk with God. How do we abide in His love? By keeping his commandments vs 10. If we walk in this kind of love, He says that our "joy will be full." This love thing is pretty serious, we are to love one another and lay down our lives for our friends. We need an attitude adjustment from a servant mentality to a friend mentality. God isn't interested in only our service to Him but with our relationship with Him. He wants us to be His friends. And again we see His desire for us to be fruitful and as a direct result of this we can ask and recieve whatever we desire. Awesome!

The secret of fruitfulness is found in this chapter. Here we see the Fathers desire for his children to be fruitful. The pruning is simply God working in us removing "dead wood" so that new life and fruit can come forth. The cleansing for pruning comes through the word. (vs 3). Gods word bings correction, instruction, and reproof. The Holy Spirit reveals the word and uses it as a sharp two edged sword to remove the dead wood and conform us to Christs image. The secret to bear fruit is "Abiding in Christ". He is the source of our bearing fruit. We cannot bear fruit alone. The more of ourselves we give to Christ, the more He is able to bring out fruit. Vs 6 Being thrown into fire is not a bad thing. God is a consuming fire. As we are thrown into the fire, God burns up the dry areas and whithered parts so that we will bear more fruit. Gods ultimate desire is for us to be fruitful and will take us through the process for our lives to bring glory to Him. Vs 7, if we abide in Him and his Word abides in us we can ask what we will and it will be done. God is glorified that we bear much fruit and fruitful people are called Disciples. There is a difference between a beleiver and a disciple. Disciples bring forth fruit!

Jesus preparing to ascend back to heaven soon wanted his disciples to know that they would not be left alone. He promises to send them a helper. This word in the greek is "parakletos", it means helper, comforter, standby, advocate, defender. This is the person of the Holy Spirit. He will abide with us forever. The Holy Spirit is the "spirit of truth" who will lead us into all truth. He opens our eyes to see new insight. He helps us to hear Gods voice and to lead us. He prompts us to speak a word of edification to the discouraged soul. He gives us compassion to reach out and touch hurting hearts. He gives us the ability to walk with dignity, humility and in rightousness. He takes away the taste for worldly things and places the desire to taste and see that the Lord is good. He is our helper. Willing to instruct, teach and transform us into the image of Jesus. He indwells us, lives in us, is always present even in the time of trouble. He reveals to us the fathers heart of love. What a wonderful person the Holy Spirit is!

Jesus is always trying to stretch us and get us out of our comfort zone. If we could get people to do the works of Jesus I think that would be satisfactory. But here He says that "greater" works than these shall we do. It's so desireable to stay in the boat and watch others attempt to walk on the water. There is an invitation for everybody to step out and expect greater things to happen in out lives. He is so willing to answer our prayers. It isn't complicated at all, the formula is simple, just ask, beleive and expect the answer to come. He said "I will do it".

In verse 3 Phillip asks the question, "how can we know the way?" This is what people are looking for today, "to know the way." The way to peace, the way to happiness, the way to success, the way to joy, the way to wealth, the way to fulfillment. The answer is very simple, Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. Everything that the heart of man longs for is found in Jesus. He is the way to all that man desires. The hymn of old says, "only Jesus can satisfy your soul, only he can cleanse your life and make you whole." Jesus then reveals to Phillip the importance of knowing the father. Jesus is the only way to know the Father. The nature of the Father is revealed to us through the life of Jesus. He who has seen me, Jesus said, has seen the Father. To know the will of the Father for us today is known to us by looking at the life of Jesus. He saves, heals, delivers, set people free, that is what the Fathers desires to do for us today.

Jesus says in verse one, "Let not your heart be troubled...." We are living in times of tremendous trouble. Every where we look we see trouble. There is trouble locally, regionally, nationally and in the whole world. It's everywhere! What a tremendous statement from a man who was facing "Big" trouble. He was just betrayed by a close disciple, He is facing the cross and imenante pain and suffering and in the midst of all He says, "let not your heart be troubled." We have a choice when trouble comes, either to embrace it or put it in its proper place. The key word is "Let". To let or not to let, to allow or not to allow, to embrace or not to embrace. The choice is ours. The secret of how to "not let" is focusing on Jesus while in the storm. He is our peace! If He could handle the trouble that He faced, He will give us the courage to face the trouble that we face. Remember, He is our peace!

Jesus has just identified the person who would betray him. What might of gone though his mind when He found out? Did he know it all along? When He called him to be a disciple, did he know that he would betray him? If He did know all along, He didn't let on. He still treated Judas like all of the others. In fact in verse one, He loved Judas unto the end. So, He tells Judas to go and do quickly what he needs to do. Then something amazing happens; vs 34,35 He says, "A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another as I have loved you. I would think that in the moment of being betrayed by a trusted associate that the last thing on his mind would be "love". I would be thinking about getting even, payback, vengence! What a lesson! We all encounter people who betray us in life, a husband, wife, child, parent, best friend. Can we respond the same way as Jesus? This is the first time reading through this that I saw this truth. The Holy Spirit still openes our eyes to the truth that he has for us. God Still Speaks Today!

This is amazing to me. Jesus, God the son, the creator of everything, shows us his heart and attitude for ministry. First of all, He loved his disciples to the end. Unfailing and endless love. And here we see Jesus humble himself to wash his disciples feet. Have you ever seen a University professor wash his students feet? or the CEO of a large company wash his employees feet? This is completely against what is considered normal.

There are three important areas here: (1) The absence of Pride. In James it says that God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. (2) The exposure of insecurity. Secure people are servants, insecure people feel threatened when they lessen themselves to serve. (3) The Independant attitude. Peter at first resisted the idea of being served. A servant is able to serve and be served. This is the mark of maturity and strenght. Later it says that Jesus has left us an example to follow. It's the attitude of being a servant and living a life of humility and blessings to others.

In vs 42, it says that many beleived in but wouldn't admit to anyone for fear that they would be expelled from the synagogue. Same picture today, different time. Many do beleive in Christ but for many mysterious reasons refuse to verbalize their faith in Him. The motive today is the same as back then, FEAR. Fear of man. Fear of opinions. Fear of losing prestige and position. In todays society it is not popular to be a Christian. It is more popular to go with the flow of human secularism and trust in yourself. Secular humanism loves the praises of man more than the praise of God.

Jesus again emphasizes that He is light. Light shining in the darkness. When we put all of our trust in Him we will not remain in darkness. People go through "dark" times in their lives. The way out of that darkness is trusting completely in Jesus to lead you out into the light. Aren't you glad that Jesus didn't come to judge but to bring us the good news of our father? Judgement day will come, everybody will stand before the father and give an account for His life. Thank God for the blood of Jesus that makes us worthy to stand on that day.

Jesus prayed and said, "Father, bring glory to your name." He was focusing on the cross, his soul was deeply troubled and yet his desire was to bring glory to God. We too have dificulties in our lives. We face circumstances that are uncertain and confusing, but somehow someway Jesus can recieve glory as we fulfill Gods will and word in our lives. He knew by going to the cross that he would draw all men unto himself. As we lift up Jesus in our lives and share with others what He has done in us and for us, others will be drawned to Jesus. Our job is to point people to the cross, lift up Jesus and He will do the drawing. Jesus is the light. He said to Beleive in the light and then we would become children of light. As He is so are we in this world.

Here Jesus said, "Unless it dies it will be alone - a single seed. But its death will produce many new kernels - a plentiful harvest of new lives." Jesus was speaking about his soon death. We know that as a result of him giving his live that literally millions of people have been saved by beleiving on him. Babu was a young seed that was planted into the earth by death, an untimely and unfortunate death. I beleive though that somehow someway his life will produce a plentiful harvest of new lives. What the devil planned for destruction, may God turn it around and produce life. May there be thousands of kids now saved and rescued from the streets of India and come to know Jesus as their saviour. God has the ability to turn tragedy into victory. In time we will see the power of God working in this situation giving Him great glory.

Here we see some Greeks come to visit Phillip and they said something that is in every persons heart to discover, they said "Sir, we want to meet Jesus." There is a part of every persons souls that has the need to "meet Jesus." This is more than just a casual meeting, this is a life changing meeting. When a person meets Jesus, circumstances change, habits change, our vocabulary changes, our thoughts and actions change. This is what will bring a change to our world, to meet Jesus personally and allow him to do a work in each of our hearts. When the lost meet Jesus, they are saved. When the sick meet Jesus they are healed. When people in need or miracles in their lives meet Jesus, miracles begin to happen. Jesus is God! He is God the Son, powerful to transform the lives of all who come to him. To meet Jesus, all you have to do is to accept Him into your heart, ask him to forgive you of your sins and He will start to change your life. Sir, we want to meet Jesus!

What a sight! Jesus having dinner with Lazarus. What do you think the table conversation was about? Is it possible that they were listening to Lazarus tell about his death experience? Maybe he was telling about conversations he had with Abraham and Moises. To say the least it must ofbeen quite interesting to sit and listen to the conversation at that table.

Then Mary comes and anoints Jesus with some expensive perfume. Some experts say that it was worth a years salary. Quite expensive. The containers in those days were different than todays. Then she would have to use all of the contents on Jesus. She couldn't open the lid and pour out a little, she had to use it all. This shows the value we should give to Christ. He is worthy of more than a token of worship, He is worthy of the very best that we can give him. And, there is always a religious guy that will criticize a person who gives their very best to Jesus. Criticism come because a religious person next to a worshipper seems dead and to be made to look bad, will criticize the worshipper. Judas had other motives as well to show his distaste to her act. He wanted to pocket some of the cash into his pocket as well.

The practical application is: Don't be discouraged by half hearted christians who try to bring you down to their level. Continue your pursuit of Christ and be a worshipper that gives 100%.

To me this chapter proves that Jesus and give life to dead things. Lazerus was dead! Very dead! Dead for four days and his sister said that he was stinking by now. Jesus is the resurrection and the life. He resurrects our dead, buried, forgotten dreams and visions of years gone by. What dream have you buried? What has died inside of you that once was vibrant and alive? Let His power bring back to life your dream and let his life restore your vision.