Day 31 - March 31st 2022
READ John 13:31-14:4
31 When he was gone, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in him. 32 If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once.
33 “My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come.
34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
36 Simon Peter asked him, “Lord, where are you going?”
Jesus replied, “Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later.”
37 Peter asked, “Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.”
38 Then Jesus answered, “Will you really lay down your life for me? Very truly I tell you, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times!
14:1 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. 2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going.”
5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”
9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. 12 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
14 “Do not let your hearts be troubled.
The disciples are naturally enough disturbed, indeed “troubled,” by the news of Jesus’ imminent death and departure. Jesus therefore commands them not to be troubled. But there is no point giving such a command without following up with a reason, which Jesus straightaway does. Too many times people give commands of a spiritual kind without providing reasons of a practical nature. This can all too often lead to guilt.
Why are we not to be troubled with all the difficulties we face? How can we avoid such troubled feelings? Jesus tells us that at root the issue is faith. “Trust in God; trust also in me.”
There is a battle in all of our hearts to choose between anxiety and faith. Where there is faith, there is no room for anxiety; and where there is anxiety and troubled feelings, there is faith lacking. So, part of the answer to troubled feelings is simply to school ourselves to trust. But trust in what?
Jesus goes further than simply telling us to trust. He also tells us what to trust in: he paints the picture of heaven as a beautiful and bountiful house of the Father God, and we are to trust this view as it is what he has “told” us. We can avoid trouble, then, by trusting what Jesus says about the Father’s house to which those who trust in Jesus are destined.
So trouble flees. How? Through faith. Faith in what? Faith in Jesus’ promise of his Father’s house. In what way can we be sure of this eternal promise? By knowing Jesus himself.
We move from being “troubled” disciples to being those who double, treble, and quadruple the numbers of disciples of Jesus Christ. Would you then today not have your heart be troubled, but instead as an act of spiritual commitment put your trust in Christ!