The Daily Word of Righteousness

Coming to the Disciple and Coming to the World, #8

Don't you believe I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. (John 14:10—NIV)

Can you see in the above that Christ is the eternal House of God? While Christ was on earth He was the only living Stone in the Father's House. Now Christ is the chief Cornerstone of the eternal temple of which we are being made living stones.

Notice carefully:

If you love me, you will obey what I command. (John 14:15—NIV)

The importance of keeping the commandments of Christ and His Apostles cannot possibly be overemphasized. When we insist that all we have to do is believe in Jesus we are not being scriptural. It is true we have to believe the promises of God, just as did Abraham. But we also have to obey the commandments of God, just as did Abraham.

Abraham was blessed, received fruitfulness and dominion, and became part of the source of eternal life to the nations, all because He obeyed God—not because he believed the promise but because he obeyed the command to offer Isaac as a living sacrifice.

Our threadbare teaching of today that advises us to believe in Jesus apart from obeying the commandments of Christ and His Apostles is destroying the strength of the Church. It is not scriptural, as the hastiest review of the New Testament will reveal.

We of America must begin to keep the commandments given in the New Testament or our nation is doomed.

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— 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. (John 14:16,17—NIV)

If we keep the commandments of Christ He will give us the Holy Spirit to dwell in us forever. We already have the Holy Spirit and through Him we put to death the sinful deeds of our body; through Him we minister to our fellow members of the Body of Christ; and through Him we bear witness to the ends of the earth of the atoning death and triumphant resurrection of the Lord.

Now we are saved and filled with the Spirit. But there is a further work—a work that will prepare us to return with the Lord and establish the Kingdom of God on the earth.

I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. (John 14:18—NIV)

"I will come to you." Jesus is not referring to the Holy Spirit, the Counselor, the Spirit of truth. He is referring to Himself. The Holy Spirit and the Lord Jesus are not the same Person. The Holy Spirit brings us to Jesus. It is Jesus who is the Bridegroom.

This is the same coming we noticed in verse three: "And if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you to myself that where I am, there you may be also."

To be continued.