October 16: John 14:12-17
Key Verse: John 14:17
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.
Devotion:
What a glorious promise... Whatever we ask in Christ’s name, assuming that it be for our good and suitable for us (according to God’s will), He will give it to us! To ask in Christ’s name is to ask in honesty, knowing He has promised to listen and to answer, and then to depend on the promise that He will answer. In other words, when we ask, we must expect our prayer to be answered... because that is what Christ has promised us!
But just as we are expected to depend on those promises, we are also expected to keep His commandments. It is not a dependency. He is not saying that He will answer our prayers if we keep His commandments. He tells us He will answer our prayers and then reminds us we need to keep His commandments as well – that is what He expects from us. He expects us to believe Him in His promise and also to keep His commandments, not for payment of what He has done, but to show Him we do love Him.
And then He backs things up by telling the disciples He has already thought of them in the future when He Himself will no longer physically be amongst them in person; He tells them of the Great Comforter who He will give to all those willing to believe. Again, this is a promise we can depend on, but this promise does have strings attached. Nothing sinister. He knew that when He left the Holy Spirit, the people of the world would not readily accept Him because they could not see Him. They could not see the need for a Saviour and could not see how an unseen Saviour could save them. We have all the truth in our bibles we need so we can learn about How this is possible and how we too can receive the Holy Spirit by believing in God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. It may be hard for us to grasp the truth at first, but once we put our trust in Christ, the Holy Spirit helps us to understand it in our hearts...
Points to Ponder:
How often do you keep all things that you say?
How much do you depend on Christ’s promises?