Living in Jesus, Abiding in Him (24)

 

 

As we continue to reflect on John 15:7, I want to return to some thoughts from George MacDonald.

 

“For the real good of every gift is essential first, that the giver be in the gift – as God always is, for He is love – and next, that the receiver know and receive the giver in the gift. Every gift of God is but a harbinger of His greatest and only sufficing gift – that of Himself. No gift unrecognized as coming from God is at its own best: therefore many things that God would gladly give us, things even that we need because we are, must wait until we ask for them, that we may know whence they come: when in all gifts we find Him, then in Him we shall find all things.” (George MacDonald - An Anthology, C. S. Lewis, page 48). 

 

When we read the prayer passages (John 14:13 – 14; 15:7; 16:23 – 24) of the Upper Room in isolation, we miss them and we miss our Father. The context of these passages is relationship with the Trinity, it is koinonia with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

 

Folks ask me about the prayer passages, but when they ask me about the passages they do not ask me about relationship with the Father. I am asked, “Why doesn’t God answer prayer?” I am not asked, “How can I know God better? How can I experience intimacy with our Father?” I am asked, in essence, how we can get God to answer prayer – as if our Father were a pagan deity; I am not asked how we can know Jesus.

 

When I respond with Jesus’ Upper Room invitation to koinonia with the Father, folks usually tell me that once their prayers are answered that they will have time to get to know God better. We think God is an ATM machine – we want His bank card to get what we want, and maybe after we get what we want, the way we want it, we will spend a little time with Him before we move on. We think God will be so grateful to us for using His bank card at His bank that He will thank us and appreciate anything we do for Him and any time we spend with Him. Why we might even read a Bible verse every day to show Him that we haven’t forgotten Him.

 

As we read of Jesus in the Upper Room, as we consider the wonderful things He says to us, the beautiful message of our Father’s love for us and His desire for us to live in Him – let us also remember that Jesus is shortly going to be betrayed, suffer, and die – bearing our hideous sins and the depths of our sinful selves, so that His Word to us in the Upper Room might become an eternal reality in our lives.

 

Are we ignoring such love?

 

How are we truly reading the prayer passages in the Upper Room? How are we living them?

 

How do you see yourself when reading MacDonald’s words?

 

How are we responding to the love of God in Jesus Christ?