Hey! I saw something interesting today; John the Baptist was set apart by God from birth, and filled with the Spirit, AND Jesus himself said that “among men born of women there isn’t anyone greater than John”…and yet John, the Spirit-filled, prophecy fulfilling prophet….never performed a miracle.
John’s whole ministry was telling people that Jesus was coming, and they should get ready. His message, which was ordained by God was not accompanied by any miracles. We often make a big deal out of performing miracles and operating in the Spirit’s power, and generally I think that’s a good thing…but we also have to take into account the life of John the Baptist. John was a Nazarite, set apart by God from birth (from before birth actually) for a specific purpose. John was Spirit filled, because he knew (even in the womb) who Jesus was. He testified to it at the baptism of Christ as well. John was operating in the Spirit, and yet didn’t do any miracles. He didn’t heal anyone. I suppose you could make the case that John was the last in a line of spirit filled prophets who came before Christ. After Christ’s death and resurrection there were clearly resources available to us that weren’t there before. The Holy Spirit manifested in a different way upon believers after the resurrection. I only mention it to provide balance to my own thoughts: Being filled with the Spirit of God doesn’t always manifest the same way as any one person in Scripture. God is larger than that.
Back to the beginning briefly. Isn’t it ironic that the crowd is pushing for Jesus to tell them clearly that He is the Messiah, and yet when He does so, they try to kill him? People who demand the truth will occasionally fight against it (once they have it) as hard as they fought to hear it. People are weird, man.
Let’s demonstrate: The one thing we all want is truth, right? The Bible says there is one and only one way to enter into heaven, and that’s through Jesus Christ. Jesus himself says that if we love him, we will obey him, and that those who confess him and obey his teachings here on earth will be with him in glory someday in heaven. Some of the instructions God gives us are fairly vague and open to interpretation, other parts are quite strict, such as keeping the Sabbath holy, forgiving others, honoring your parents, showing mercy, and not engaging in sexual acts with your same sex. Ho Ho! you see what I did there? I dropped an “inconvenient truth” of Scripture in amongst the others that we don’t generally have a problem with. But many who say they seek truth will fight against that truth. The bottom line is this: We all say we want to hear the truth, but sometimes the truth is hard to hear. Honestly, we probably aren’t far from the crowd in our own actions, so we shouldn’t look down on them for trying to kill Jesus. Our society has been trying to drive him out of the public eye for 50 years. (unsuccessfully..Ha!)
Jesus and the Father are one. And once we are forgiven, we are also one with Jesus and the Father, John 17 confirms it. As we are found “in Christ” we are sensitive to the Master’s voice, and no one is strong enough to take us away from the Father, we are secure in our relationship, without fear of being taken against our will.
We can, however, choose to leave. I’m not sure why we choose that, but we sometimes do. It generally begins with a selfish thought, which leads to a gradual cooling off period during which we find “church people” to be difficult to get along with, and don’t even get me started on what a problem the Pastor is…. eventually we decide we are better off either on our own, or in a different church. And so begins the separation from the flock. Some realize the error of their ways and find their way back, others become more and more cynical and eventually walk away from Christ altogether. Oh, don’t get me wrong, they will still say they are believers…there just isn’t any fruit in their lives to identify them. They are angry, bitter, resentful and lack the desire and the humility to be connected to the rest of the body. It truly is sad.
Well, I don’t feel like I have covered this passage nearly enough, but my day beckons, and the Coronavirus 19 (yes, we are struggling through that right now) is making life interesting. Lots of changes coming, and lots of work to do because of it.
Be blessed, and keep serving Jesus,
PR