Thursday 11 Oct 2018

October 11: John 12:27-32

Key Verse: John 12:28
Father, glorify your name!” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.”

Devotion:
What a statement Christ gives here! He knows full well what He is going to face and knows He is about to have the sins of the world on His shoulders and yet He gives God the glory. His initial question is simply to highlight the answer in the next statement; should He be asking God to get Him out of there before things get really tough, or should He be laying His life squarely in God’s hands? He gives the answer “Father, glorify thy name”... He is not doing this for His sake but for ours.

So many times we do face things in our lives where our faith is tested. In those times we need to stand firm in our faith and trust in God because of His unwavering mercy. Yes it is hard to trust in someone you cannot see, but that is what our faith is, trusting wholly in God even though we cannot see Him. We only need to go over our bibles and realise just how much He has done for people in the past to realise that His promises stand forever. By reading His Word we will find out just how much He does love us and how much we can actually trust in Him. “Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.” We can stand on our faith because we place it on the Rock which is Jesus Christ.

That Rock stood up and glorified God even though He was about to face death on the cross – and that was not going to be any normal death! God echoed the promise before the people when Jesus spoke. That promise still stands today and will stand until the end of time. Jesus told all those who heard the voice that is was for their sakes... Why? So they too could hear that God was setting in place an event whereby He would be glorified and by which Satan would be defeated once and for all. Satan may still be around and will surface again... but through Jesus’ death and resurrection, he has already been beaten. Praise God!

Points to Ponder:
How many times do you have to be told something before believing it?

How many times must God show His love to you?