John 14:1-31
Jesus is the One Who Was to Come from the Old Testament, The Messiah
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.”
Jesus Is The Way to God and to Heaven -He is Divine
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.
Jesus Promises the Holy Spirit
15 “If you love me, keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. 21 Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”
22 Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?”
23 Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 24 Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.
25 “All this I have spoken while still with you. 26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
28 “You heard me say, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. 29 I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe. 30 I will not say much more to you, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold over me, 31 but he comes so that the world may learn that I love the Father and do exactly what my Father has commanded me.
“Come now; let us leave.
What have I learned from the Bible and what does God want us to do in our lives?...What the Truth and the Life and the Way of Life that Jesus says He is...Here are some of the lessons, I have taken away from God's Word and His Son's Teachings...And the verse I chose for these many lessons is from the Gospel of John and where I saw Jesus, very much, as Being Divine...
God's Word tells us we are to seek Him...The Prophet Jeremiah tells us to seek the LORD our God, and we will find Him if we seek Him with all our heart and with all our soul...When we are in distress and all these things have happened to us in life, then in our later days we will return to the LORD our God and obey Him...We seek Him through our faith, as the author of Hebrews teaches us that without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him...
We are to Glorify our Father and bring Him Glory...Jesus in His High Priestly Prayers, before His death on the cross, says He has glorified God and prayed that God would also Glorify Him...Jesus would say that He had brought Glory to God on earth by finishing the work that God had given Him to do...So now, Father, Glorify Me in Your presence with the Glory I had with You before the world began...
We are to be are much like Jesus as we can...C. S. Lewis said “The Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs...If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time.”...So we are to be like Jesus...Jesus told the rich young man that Only God was Good...Jesus committed no sins and no deceit ever came from His mouth...And He teaches us to be Perfect like God is Perfect...God, as well as Jesus, are Perfect and Good...Let Jesus be our example, as best as we can, on how we should live our lives...Knowing that when we see Jesus, we have seen God...And that Him and God are One...The more we are like Him, the more harmony there is in this world...
Jesus also Teaches us that He will indwell within us a Holy Spirit...A connection to Him...A Helper, Someone Spiritual, the Spirit of Truth, an Advocate for us...He will help us find and see the Truth...He will be there in us, and I believe, is nurtured by LOVE, by Mercy, by Forgiveness, by joy, by peace, by patience, by kindness, by goodness, by faithfulness, by gentleness and by self-control...These are the Fruits of the Spirit, and from the Teachings of Jesus...When He would later send out His Disciples in to the world and the ends of the earth He said to baptize the new followers of the gospel in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit...
We are to believe in Jesus and God and that God sent Jesus, His Son to earth...We learn that Jesus has been Infinitely with His Father...Jesus' relationship with God is Eternally Special...St. John writes that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...Jesus was with God in the very beginning...Through Jesus all things are made; without Him nothing was made that has been made...In Him is life, and that life is the Light of All Mankind...The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness will never overcome it...The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us...We have seen His Glory, the Glory of the One and Only Son, who came from the Father, Full of Grace and Truth...Out of His Fullness of Grace and Truth, the Disciples were eye witnesses to His Majesty and have received Grace in place of Grace already given...For the law was given through Moses; but Grace and Truth come through Jesus Christ...No one has ever seen God, but the One and Only Son, who is Himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father...Our Father has now made known His Son...
Similar to this is God and Jesus bring us Eternal Life...We can have Eternal Life with Them if we believe in them...Jesus said that whoever hears His Word and believes Him and the One who sent Him has Eternal Life...Jesus tells us this is Eternal Life and really gives us His definition of Eternal Life...He says: Now this is eternal life: that all people will know You, the One and Only True God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent....
Gaining knowledge of God is another reason we are on earth...Jesus, as The Child of God, continued to grow and mature, He become strong, and increasing in Great Wisdom; and the Grace of God was upon Him...And as Jesus grew up from His teenage years to His twenties, He kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men...When Jesus started His Ministry, He went back to His hometown and began Teaching the people He knew in the local synagogue...He had known them years ago and they were amazed how He had changed...So that they were astonished, and said, "Where did this Man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers."...The Psalmist tells us that the LORD confides in those who fear Him; He makes His covenant known to them...Solomon wrote that the fear of the LORD is the beginning of man's wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding...For through wisdom our days will be many, and years will be added to our lives...If we are wise, our wisdom will come to reward us...So, we can believe if we have wisdom, we will put His Teachings into our lives and practice them...If we do pour this wisdom we have learned from our Father into our lives, we will live an Abundant and Wise Life...
God is LOVE...So it must be that we are to love God, and to love one another...This Jesus teaches us this and says these are the Two Greatest Commandments...By loving one another we make the world a better place...St. Paul in His first letter to the Corinthians talks about the Three Great Virtues in life...These three virtues stay with us during our journey through life...They are faith, hope and love...But the greatest of these is love...One of Jesus' last commandments was telling His Disciples to Love one another...Jesus summed His Command up this Way...My command is this: Love each other as I have LOVED you...Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends...You are My friends if you do what I command...I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know His Master’s business...Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from My Father I have made known to you...You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in My name the Father will give you...This is My command: Love each other...If we love Jesus we will keep His Commands...
Peace He would leave with His Disciples; His Peace He would give them forever...Jesus' Peace is not as this world gives...He wants us to know that we should not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid...He wants us to believe in God; and to believe also in Him...His Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would He have told us...He would leave His Disciples and returns to His Father and to Heaven...There He has prepared a place for us...And if He goes and prepare a place for us, He will come back and take us to be with Him that we also may be where He is...We know the way the place where He ascended to...Before His Ascension to Heaven, He told His Disciples this: You will receive power of the Holy Spirit...It will come on you; and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth...After He said these words, He was taken up before the Disciples very eyes, and a cloud hid Him from their sight...They were looking intently up into the sky as He was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them...“Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky?...This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”...
We are to share the Good News of Jesus and His Teachings with all we know with others...After Jesus' death, when He met with His eleven Disciples in Galilee...When the Disciples saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted...Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me...Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you...And surely I AM with you always, to the very end of the age.”...