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John 15:26-27
But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me.
And you also will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning.
And you also will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning.
Jesus is always affirming, never leaving us with a down; He is forever our comforter, and we see that here in this coda to chapter 15. He promises to send the Helper — the Spirit of Truth — who will testify of Him. In this age we know this to be true, having personal experience of the Holy Spirit working in us.
What is special — and uplifting — about all that Jesus says, is that He never condemns, but always reassures and affirms. He never leaves us to doubt and sink into panic and anxiety, because He never leaves us. The times when we feel forsaken, come because we have erected a barrier between Him and ourselves. But He wants us to be with Him. He says ‘you have been with me from the beginning.’
When is that beginning? Is it when we come to first come to know Him? His beginning or our beginning? As Jesus is talking to His disciples at this point, it seems likely that He is talking of the start of His ministry, when they were chosen to walk with Him, but there is a sense that, in the Spirit, that beginning is outside of the restrictions of time.
The book of Ephesians begins with ‘just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love,’ [Ephesians 1:4]. Whenever ‘the beginning’ is in a temporal sense, we are assured that we shall be with Him forevermore.
What is special — and uplifting — about all that Jesus says, is that He never condemns, but always reassures and affirms. He never leaves us to doubt and sink into panic and anxiety, because He never leaves us. The times when we feel forsaken, come because we have erected a barrier between Him and ourselves. But He wants us to be with Him. He says ‘you have been with me from the beginning.’
When is that beginning? Is it when we come to first come to know Him? His beginning or our beginning? As Jesus is talking to His disciples at this point, it seems likely that He is talking of the start of His ministry, when they were chosen to walk with Him, but there is a sense that, in the Spirit, that beginning is outside of the restrictions of time.
The book of Ephesians begins with ‘just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love,’ [Ephesians 1:4]. Whenever ‘the beginning’ is in a temporal sense, we are assured that we shall be with Him forevermore.
‘Meditate on these things …’
PROVERBS 8:22-32
"The LORD possessed me at the beginning of His way,
Before His works of old.
I have been established from everlasting,
From the beginning, before there was ever an earth.
When there were no depths I was brought forth,
When there were no fountains abounding with water.
Before the mountains were settled,
Before the hills, I was brought forth;
While as yet He had not made the earth or the fields,
Or the primal dust of the world.
When He prepared the heavens, I was there,
When He drew a circle on the face of the deep,
When He established the clouds above,
When He strengthened the fountains of the deep,
When He assigned to the sea its limit,
So that the waters would not transgress His command,
When He marked out the foundations of the earth,
Then I was beside Him as a master craftsman;
And I was daily His delight,
Rejoicing always before Him,
Rejoicing in His inhabited world,
And my delight was with the sons of men.
"Now therefore, listen to me, my children,
For blessed are those who keep my ways.
"The LORD possessed me at the beginning of His way,
Before His works of old.
I have been established from everlasting,
From the beginning, before there was ever an earth.
When there were no depths I was brought forth,
When there were no fountains abounding with water.
Before the mountains were settled,
Before the hills, I was brought forth;
While as yet He had not made the earth or the fields,
Or the primal dust of the world.
When He prepared the heavens, I was there,
When He drew a circle on the face of the deep,
When He established the clouds above,
When He strengthened the fountains of the deep,
When He assigned to the sea its limit,
So that the waters would not transgress His command,
When He marked out the foundations of the earth,
Then I was beside Him as a master craftsman;
And I was daily His delight,
Rejoicing always before Him,
Rejoicing in His inhabited world,
And my delight was with the sons of men.
"Now therefore, listen to me, my children,
For blessed are those who keep my ways.
“O Ignis Spiritus” (Hildegard Von Bingen) — AnúnaxjMichael McGlynn
A HOLY PROMISE: Oswald Chambers on HOPE
— In Doubt: Hope in GOD --
When God puts the dark of "nothing" into your experience, it is the most positive something He can give you. Remain in the center of nothing, and say "thank you" for nothing. It is a very great lesson, which few of us learn, that when God gives us nothing it is because we are inside Him, and by determining to do something we put ourselves outside Him.
[from ‘Not Knowing Whither’]
[from ‘Not Knowing Whither’]
Listen to this meditation by clicking below …
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