John 14:18-23 New American Standard Bible 1995
18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 [a]After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also. 20 In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. 21 He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” 22 Judas (not Iscariot) *said to Him, “Lord, what then has happened that You are going to disclose Yourself to us and not to the world?” 23 Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.
The Word of God for the Children of God.
Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.
Do you know how God chooses a place to live?
He looks for someone who is obedient to him, and then the Father and the Son come to live in that person through the Holy Spirit.
Not only do they live there, but they also reveal their presence.
In other words, Jesus has gone to heaven to prepare a place for us, but he comes to live in us until we can come to live with him.
Our invitation for him to come and live in us is our love for him, shown in our obedience.
There is nothing more important for us than to understand the earthly life of Jesus Christ.
There is a very mistaken concept among Christians that Jesus came to show us what God was like and how he would behave among men.
This is far from the truth, for Jesus did not come to show us how God behaves.
It is true that he came to reveal the Father in his character, but in his activity he came to reveal humanity as God intended humanity to be.
In everything he did we see humanity acting as God intended us to act, from the very beginning.
At the very heart of that manifestation is the key and secret of human life.
The principle on which he lived is the principle on which God intended man to live and by which we are to live.
Throughout our Lord’s ministry he reminded us continually of that great principle, not only by his words, but by his deeds.
You put Christ back into the Christian and you put God back into the man.
This is the revolutionary claim of Christianity.
Unfortunately, it is often obscured in our day.
This is why there are so many false claims and so many attempts to substitute something dramatic, something which would appeal to the human heart to distinguish Christianity from other faiths.
The radical claim of Christianity is that Jesus Christ offers to live his human life all over again in you, in the midst of the situations that you daily face.
There are few who seem to step out into this kind of living, but wherever it is attempted, strange things begin to happen.
Not that the life becomes suddenly spectacular and people go around doing miracles and other wonders, but in the quiet daily experience of life, in the various decisions that come to us, there is a quiet trust in the wisdom of God to meet our need, and things begin to work out in unexpected ways.
Extraordinary things follow ordinary activity, as God begins to work in human life.
This is the secret of human life, as our Lord had demonstrated it, making it 100% available to us as we by faith receive Jesus Christ, that his life may be lived again in us.
Love is much more than a feeling or an attitude: love is an action.
When we love, we show it by our deeds.
As disciples of Jesus, our love is shown by our obedience to the things Jesus taught.
Of course, that obedience brings an incredible blessing — Jesus reveals himself to those that obey him!
Jesus loves His people, and He wants us to love Him back.
Jesus wants to make his home within us, that we should reveal him to others.
This has been the message in the Bible from the beginning.
He has already made the first move – He left everything and he came to us.
Philippians 2:5-13 New American Standard Bible 1995
5 Have this attitude [a]in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be [b]grasped, 7 but [c]emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. 8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death [d]on a cross. 9 For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
12 So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; 13 for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.
The very human response to such a divine revelation of humility is up to us.
The revelation of Jesus Christ living in my humanity, guiding my humanity.
Revealed to the Jesus Christ living and guiding the humanity of the next person.
However small and inconsequential or large and in charge that may be in them.
In the name of God, the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,
Let us Pray,
Psalm 8 New American Standard Bible 1995
The Lord’s Glory and Man’s Dignity.
For the choir director; on the Gittith. A Psalm of David.
8 O Lord, our Lord,
How majestic is Your name in all the earth,
Who have [a]displayed Your splendor above the heavens!
2 From the mouth of infants and nursing babes You have established [b]strength
Because of Your adversaries,
To make the enemy and the revengeful cease.
3 When I [c]consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have [d]ordained;
4 What is man that You [e]take thought of him,
And the son of man that You care for him?
5 Yet You have made him a little lower than [f]God,
And You crown him with glory and majesty!
6 You make him to rule over the works of Your hands;
You have put all things under his feet,
7 All sheep and oxen,
And also the [g]beasts of the field,
8 The birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea,
Whatever passes through the paths of the seas.
9 O Lord, our Lord,
How majestic is Your name in all the earth!
God, Author of my life, final judge of my humanity, Convict me of my sin, not for my condemnation but so that I might repent and learn the new ways of righteousness. Let me walk each day in closer harmony and fellowship with you. Let your Holy Spirit live, work both in me and through me so I might experience the true joy of life.
Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.
Loving God, Living God, Loving Hope, Living Hope, Loving Living Life His Way! "Many things are possible for the person who has hope. Even more is possible for the person who has faith. And still more is possible for the person who knows how to love. But everything is possible for the person who practices all three virtues." - Brother Lawrence (1605-1691), Practicing the Presence of God (1692). 