His Coming Through Us To Others

 

 

“You have heard that I said to you, “I go away, and I will come to you.” If you loved Me, you would have rejoiced because I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. Now I have told you before it happens, so that when it happens, you may believe.” John 14:28 – 29.

 

Once again, we encounter the thread of Jesus going and coming, coming and going, going and coming – this dance will continue until His Great Coming and then we will learn a new dance – we can but rejoice in the hope of that glory! In the meantime, let us practice our steps in this dance, learning to look for Him every moment of every day and to follow His lead, for as many as are led by the Spirit of God are the sons and daughters of God (Rom. 8:15).

 

In our immediate context Jesus will soon go with the mob in the garden of Gethsemane, then He will go before the high priest, then Pilate, then Herod, then back to Pilate, then to Golgotha and the Cross, then into the tomb (speaking in the natural, for He is elsewhere), then in Resurrection out of the tomb and into the garden of a New Day…but then consider what He says to Mary Magdalene, “Stop clinging to Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father…” (John 20:17a).

 

Now this is a mysterious saying, for before the end of that day He will be in the Upper Room once again, so while we may not grasp just what Jesus means in 20:17, we can see that there is yet another going and coming on Easter. Then we have His Ascension until the Day of His Great Coming, and yet between these “times” we continue to have His goings and comings, for not only does He appear to Paul on on the road to Damascus, but He has continued to appear in many ways to myriads of people down through the ages.

 

Now to some of us He has appeared in quite visible ways, while to most of us He appears in ways that we can “see” with our hearts and minds and souls – in fact, He appears in this way to all of His People, for one way or another, to belong to Jesus means that we have, by God’s grace, seen the Lord. Certainly to be in a relationship with someone means that we are able to “see” that person, communicate with that person, know that person – and since we are made by God, and since in Christ we are made new creations by God in Christ (2 Cor. 5:16 – 21), ought we not to anticipate that we will see Jesus and talk to Jesus and hear Jesus as Jesus draws us into an ever-deepening relationship with Himself?

 

What would be think of having someone live in our house or apartment without ever seeing that person or talking to that person? What would we think of someone riding in our car with us, being at work with us, going shopping with us…without us ever talking to or seeing that person?

 

Well, my dear friends, Jesus says that He will never leave us nor forsake us. Jesus says that He and the Father and the Holy Spirit will live within us. Do we believe Jesus or not? For it we believe Him – how can we not “see” Him or “hear” Him as our Way of Life? If sharing a physical house is intimate, how much more intimate is it when the Trinity lives inside us?

 

Can we not see that the Bible teaches us that we live in Christ and that Christ lives in us? How rude to have someone living in our house or apartment and never speak to them, never listen to them, never share life with them! O the falsehoods we have believed! O the barriers we have allowed others to place between ourselves and our dear Lord Jesus! Shame on the shepherds who would keep His flock from Him, the One who gave His life for His sheep.

 

Let us remind ourselves of John 14:20, “In that Day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.” Do we believe this? Do our congregations believe this? Are we living in this reality? Is this reality being lived out from us into the world around us?

 

Now dear friends, if He is coming to us every day, then we can expect Him to be coming through us to others every day – for He comes to us so that He can come to others through us, both those who are His already and those who will come to know Him.

 

“…what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have koinonia with us, and indeed our koinonia is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.” (1 John 1:3).

 

Glory!!!