How Are We Empowered to Want to Follow Jesus?
Good Morning Friends,
As a follow up to yesterday’s devotion on making disciples today we explore the power of an intimate presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Here we reflect on how the Son of God not only became human to enable us to become children of God but also how we are to become more like Christ. Then we take it one step further in the spirit of love contemplating why Jesus is no longer physically here in his body but asks us to join together as one in the Body. With this backdrop we ask today’s question. How Are We Empowered to Want to Follow Jesus?
Scripture: Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Ephesians 5:18-20 (NRSV)
‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.
‘I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. But now I am going to him who sent me; yet none of you asks me, “Where are you going?” But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgement: about sin, because they do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer; about judgement, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.
‘I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.
John 14:15-18; 16:5-15 (NRSV)
Message: The core truth is this: Jesus promised he would not leave us but would sent a helper to work in us as we empty ourselves of known sin and seek to be filled with God’s power. Though Jesus spoke of the Holy Spirit at other times in his ministry, this person of the Trinity takes center stage as Jesus is preparing to depart. The beauty is that it is a relationship that will never leave us but guide us in a new ministry connecting our spiritual gifts. To better understand this lets put in in context. Here we have some of the last words of Christ the night before the crucifixion. He is in the upper room and as the evening progresses he changes the order of the Passover meal in offering bread and wine as a new covenant in his body and blood. Then he gets up and washes his disciple’s feet. Then he tells them it is going to be to their advantage that he leave them. He offers them a troubling revelation but also an introduction of a person like another Jesus. Translations fail us here in understanding the full nature of something that scripture claims is to be better than the physical presence of Jesus… a Spirit that glorifies Jesus and continues, slowly but surely to make us more like Jesus. The good news is that the Spirit is at work in us constantly leading us to Jesus Christ as an advocate, helper, calling us in and sending us out, exhorting, encouraging, comforting, strengthening, consoling, connecting, convincing and convicting us on the journey.
Pray the Holy Spirit helps us to see all of life in the light of the One who is the Truth. Pray the work of the Holy Spirit of God indwell in us fulfilling God’s Word that we be made holy. Pray we realize that it is necessary that we be both comforted and disturbed. Pray the Holy Spirt transform us into the image of Christ in the character of Jesus manifested in the fruit of the Spirit. Pray our level of trust increases. Pray our knowledge of Christ grows. Pray we embrace the sacrificial love of Jesus Christ knowing that he loved the poor and seeks justice for them. Pray we share our faith becoming a living and breathing organism in and of the Body of Christ dependent on each other with Christ as our head.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 