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- What attributes of God’s character does this passage reveal?
- How does the passage point to Jesus?
- How should the truth of this passage change me?
- How do the events of today’s reading help you better understand the grand narrative of Scripture?
John 14-15
Three times in these two chapters Jesus tells His disciples that whatever they ask in His name, they will receive. I, like many others, struggle with that because we ask for many things that we don’t receive. We know that God does not lie or mislead, so the conflict must lie in our understanding. In order to find better understanding, we need to seek a new perspective. So I think the first issue is that these statements are not meant as stand-alone, blanket statements. Which means we need to look at context.
The first thing I notice is that each instance of this ask and receive statement comes in the context of doing the works of God and producing His fruit. And I notice that, in that same context, Jesus says, “…because you can do nothing without me” (Jn. 15:5b). Another thing I notice is that Jesus uses the word “love” probably more than any other word in these two chapters. The basic gist of all of that is that if you love Him, you will keep His commands and His command is to love one another just as He loves us. My final contextual observation is that Jesus is our connection to God. To know Jesus is to know God and we cannot believe in God if we don’t believe in Jesus. Thus, we must remain in Jesus for God to do His work in us.
In light of these contextual observations, I see two things in Jesus’ ask / receive statements. The first is that He is telling us that we can go directly to God through Him. That layer of protective separation God set up with the Priests and Levites is no longer needed. And we no longer need the written law. As promised, God’s has now written His laws on our hearts and minds. The other thing I see is that the work of God is all about genuine, nitty-gritty love. And I see that the work is His. Which means that we cannot love like we should – i.e. keep God’s law – without Jesus. However, when we know and believe in Jesus, the Father Himself gives us whatever we need to do His work and produce His fruit, just as Jesus did. All we have to do is ask for it.
John 16-17
Again Jesus mentions ask and receive. And His words in these two chapters reinforce the thoughts I just expressed about what He is saying in that. Jesus gives us a direct connection to God so that His power dwells in us. Jesus explained these things to His disciples before they were completed by the Holy Spirit so that they could endure what was yet to come. He then gave them an example, by praying in His own name for them and for all of us who believe in Him. In writing it all down, they, in turn, explained it to the rest of us so that we can know what they knew. Because we know, we, too, can be courageous, holding fast to our faith and remaining in Christ no matter what we suffer in this life.