Don’s Daily Devotions

Read John 14:16-20

Here is the Promise of the Holy Spirit, who will be given to all believers.

V16: Jesus asks the Father to give the Spirit. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are engaged together in all that our salvation means. They are One, and their will is One, but their roles are revealed to us in Scripture, Jesus calls the Spirit “another Helper” (ESV) – another to be what Jesus has been to them. This promise extends to every believer. The word here given as “Helper” is translated in many ways in different versions, the term was used, originally in a court of law, to describe one who stands alongside another, to help, support and plead for them. All this, the Holy Spirit is to all true believers.

V17: He is the Spirit of Truth – He reveals the truth of God’s Word to our hearts, the truth that Jesus brought – and WAS. (v6) He did this for these first disciples after He was given to them on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2) opening their understanding to all that Jesus had told them. He does it still through the Scriptures, but only true believers can know His Work in their hearts. He is with these disciples already – in Christ’s own ministry – but He will be IN them – after Pentecost.

V18: And Jesus will be with them still, no longer physically, of course, but through the Spirit’s ministry. He will not leave them bereft (“as orphans”) He loves them as His own children. Still true for every believer!

V19: Soon He will leave the world – by His death, resurrection and ascension – but they will see Him again. First, in His appearances in the 40 days after His resurrection, but surely the promise reaches out to what He has said back in v2-3, not only for these first disciples but all His redeemed people.

V20: “in that day” – perhaps when they see the risen Lord, perhaps after Pentecost – all He has said of Himself, His Father and their union with all believers will be known to be true. This is the Spirit’s ministry to them, and through His Word, to us!

Read John 14 v12-15

V12: Many find this verse puzzling. How can anyone do “greater works” than Jesus Himself? But His people, both these first disciples and us today, are to continue His work in the power of the Holy Spirit, above all in the preaching of the gospel, and in faithful witness to Christ. (Matthew 28:18-20; Acts1:8.) The world-wide spread of the gospel, the growth of God’s kingdom throughout the ages, are the “greater works”.

V13-14: A wonderful promise, but not a “blank cheque” for anything we might want or desire. The assurance here is that whatever we ask seeking God’s glory, and to do His will, and to the glory of Christ our Saviour, God will answer to His own glory.

“In my Name” rules out anything we cannot rightly ask in that Name! Are we truly concerned above all to do His will and seek His glory?

V 15: Again we are reminded that our love for the Lord is shown by our obedience to Him -He must be Lord of our lives, not just upon our lips! (Luke 6:46) And remember the “new commandment “He has just given. (ch 13:34)

Read John 14:7-11

V7: Only through Jesus can we truly know God as Father – and to know Him is to know the Father. He came to show us the Father, with whom He is eternally One (John 1:18) God is a spirit, but we see Him truly revealed and reflected in Jesus.

V8: Philip, still not understanding, says eagerly “Show us the Father” – We want to see God!

V9: Jesus, who has been with them 3 years now, says if they really know Him, theyknow the Father. (John 10:30) How many say they want to know God, but will not look at or listen to Jesus!

V10: Here is the intimate oneness of Father and Son (and the Holy Spirit too.) Here is the mystery of God’s being, but He reveals it to us in His Word. Yet, one with the Father from all eternity (John 1:1), in His human nature Jesus acts only on the Father’s authority, His Words and Works are the Father’s. He came as the perfectly obedient Servant of God. Our great example.

V11: Again, He calls them to believe in this Intimate Oneness, and declares that the very things they have seen Him do should be sufficient witness to the truth of all He says. The Gospel records present that witness to all who have eyes to see!

Read John 14:1-6

V1: Jesus is preparing His disciples for His going away, which will be by His death on the cross. He knows they are puzzled, their minds troubled, and how grieved they will be when He is taken, but he seeks to comfort them through wonderful promises they will understand later. He calls them to trust Him, just as they trust God.

V2: The Father’s house is the ultimate home He will share with His people – heaven. “Many rooms” is too vague, the word means ‘abiding places’, (the old word ‘abodes’), where people belong, their rightful home. There is a place there for every believer, through Christ’s redeeming death for them.

V3: He goes to make their – and our, if we are trusting in Him – place ready, and will come for them again. He wants all His people to be with Him forever.

V4-5: Jesus says they know the way there. Thomas replies they don’t – for they still don’t understand. Do we at times fail to understand what God says to us in His Word, by not really listening to it.

V6: Jesus Himself IS the Way – the only way to God, the only way sinful humans can have a place in heaven. That way is made through the cross, where He bore our sins that we might be forgiven. And He is the Truth, the living truth of God, which He came to declare to us – and the Life, the new spiritual life, eternal life, which is received by faith, through God’s grace alone. (John 3:16 ). Note, this is an exclusive claim – Jesus is the only Saviour, the only way to truly know God – and we need no other! (Hebrews7:25)

Read John 13:36-38

Just three verses, but how challenging they are.

V36-37: Simon Peter, so often confident – over confident -in his own strength and ability, refuses to accept that he can’t go with Jesus. He declares he is ready and willing to lay down his life for him, if need be. And Simon means it – his heart is sincere, I don’t doubt – but he is relying on his own human strength and courage. He can do it – he will never let Jesus down!

How easily we can fall back into relying on our own strength, our own ability. How often we think ourselves “sufficient”. We must realise and accept our weakness, our frailty – perhaps this present time is teaching us that. The OT teaches it too – Zechariah 4:6. – The NT reinforces it in many places – (e.g. 2 Corinthians 3:5, 4:7) and in the example of Simon Peter here.

V38: Jesus tells Peter he will deny him three times this very night. He who has claimed, and yes, boasted, so much will fall so low. (See John 18:15-18, 25-27). But let us not judge and criticise Peter, but recognise our own weakness and our need of the strength and steadfastness which only God’s grace can give us. Peter will be forgiven and restored by that grace, and afterwards will serve his Lord in the power of the Holy Spirit, not his own.

Let us end this chapter, reflecting on the words of 1Corinthians 10:12 – “Let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed, lest he fall”. Truly, our sufficiency is, and can only be, from God alone.

Read John 13:31-35

V31-32: With Judas gone, Jesus, for all the weight of His sufferings which He knows, seems less burdened, and can speak of God’s sure purpose in it all – to glorify His Son, and be glorified in Him. The Son of Man was the title Jesus most used for Himself, it came from OT prophecy, but also declared His true human nature. His glory came through the work of His cross, and His Father, who gave His Son for us shares in that glory ( Philippians 2:9-11) We give God the glory when we praise and worship Him as He deserves, giving Him what belongs only to Him. How amazing that the eternal Lord of glory was pleased to come again to His glory after He so humbled Himself, through His death on the cross for us!

V33: He will leave these disciples soon; will go where they cannot (yet) follow. He returns to His Father, after His death, resurrection and ascension into heaven. But o ne day they, and all His redeemed people, will be with Him. (See John 14:1-3.)

V34: But for now, they must face life without His physical presence – as we all still do – and so He gives them His “new commandment” – they must love one another. But how is it “new”? Jesus Himself summed up the OT law in love for God, and for others (Matthew 22:36-40.) What is new is the measure of this love – it is to be like His love for them – for us. This is how Christians are to love one another!

V35: And Jesus says it should be the first, the most obviously different thing that others see in us. “See how these Christians love one another” wrote a second century historian in amazement. Can that be seen in us? How do we show it, to each other and to unbelievers around us?

Read John 13:12-20

V12: Jesus wants them – and us – to understand what He has done.

V13-14: They call Him their Master, their teacher, and rightly so. Now he has given them an example of how they should regard and treat one another -and how we should!

V15: And what is that example? A humble willingness to serve each other, to put others first -to be prepared to do anything to show love and meet each other’s needs. It doesn’t have to be literally to wash each other’s feet, but to put others first, to see them as more important than ourselves (Philippians 2:2-5) this is to be like Jesus!

V16-17: If Jesus shows such love by self-humbling concern and service for His people, so must we if we are His disciples, seeking to follow Him and be like Him. We must not just “talk the talk”, but walk the walk”.

V18: Again, He speaks of the betrayal- how it weighed on His truly human heart – but Scripture had foretold it(Psalm 41:9.)

V19: And He wants them to know it is all within God’s plan, and under His control. When we see this of the sufferings and death of God’s own Son for our salvation, can we not trust Him in the things we don’t yet understand in our own lives?

V20: How fully Jesus identifies Himself with His people and so does His Father, He assures us. Do we know the wonder of this union with Christ, all and only by His grace?

Read John 13:7-11

V7: Jesus tells Peter he doesn’t yet understand what the Lord is doing, but in due time he will. How often this is true of us, perhaps even at this present time, but HE is Lord!

V8: Peter still protests – and here we feel he is “digging his heels in”, he’s sure he’s right, and isn’t really listening to the Lord. This also can be true of us! What Jesus’ answer means is, surely, that Peter – and all believers- belong to Jesus on His terms, not ours. We can only be made clean by what Jesus has done, not anything we can do. This looks beyond the foot washing to His death on the cross and His shed blood for our sins. (See 1 John 1:7)

V9: Simon is now all enthusiasm – “then wash me all over, Lord”

V10: But by what Jesus has done for His people, they are completely clean – nothing can be added, or needs to be. Do we know this is true of us, because we are trusting in Him?

V10-11: Again, we see the Lord’s knowledge of Judas’ betrayal. He is not made clean, because he is not truly trusting in Jesus at all. Let us be warned, it is possible to seem to be one of Christ’s people – to be “like the others in church, etc.” yet not to know and trust Jesus ourselves. May we all know Him as our own Saviour and Lord.

Day One: Read John 13, verses 1-6.

Introduction: The Jewish feast of the Passover remembered and celebrated God’s wonderful O.T. deliverance of His people Israel from Egypt. On the very night before us in this chapter, Jesus transformed that passover meal into what we now call the Lord’s Supper, or the Communion, where Christians remember His death for us, to save us from our sins – Jesus, the true Passover lamb. ( John does not actually record this – see Matthew 26:26-29; Mark 14:22-25; Luke 22:14-20.)

Notes on these verses:

V1: Jesus knows “His hour has come” – the hour His Father God had fixed, when He would leave this world and return to the Father, but by His death on the cross bearing the sins of all who would trust in Him as Saviour – the purpose for which God sent His Son. ( John 3:16.) He loved ” His own” – not just those first disciples, but all His people down through the ages, ” to the end”, to and in His death for them on the cross. Can you say, with Paul, ” He loved me, and gave Himself for me”? ( Galatians 2:20.)

V2: Judas, the betrayer of Jesus. Yes, the devil filled his heart, but he was ready to betray the Lord.

V3: And Jesus knew this, and knew all things were in God’s hand and purpose.So, how did He show His love to His disciples?

V4-5: He took the role of a servant, in the humblest and most demeaning of tasks, to wash their feet. Imagine those bare feet, from those dusty Palestinian roads in the heat of the day. This was the task of the lowest sevant in a household – beneath the dignity of those of higher rank – yet Jesus did it for His loved ones.

V6: Simon Peter protests. Some criticise him at once, but to me he alone sees how unfitting it is, that Jesus should do this for him! But he doesn’t yet understand. Do we realise how amazingly the Son of God has humbled Himself for us? ( see Philippians 2:5-8)