Keep On Revealing

Scripture: John 17:25-26 (Click link for scripture in Bible Gateway)

25 “O righteous Father, the world doesn’t know you, but I do; and these disciples know you sent me. 26 I have revealed you to them, and I will continue to do so. Then your love for me will be in them, and I will be in them.” (John 17:25-26 NLT)

“The world doesn’t know you, but I do.” Remember a couple of days ago we were thinking about “The Plan” (GN 10-29-23 My Prayer)? Jesus shows us the Father, and we show the Father to the world we live in. Remember we realized there is no other plan? There’s no Plan B, there’s no backup plan, this is “The Plan”! The world Jesus came to save doesn’t know the Father. The world Jesus came to save either doesn’t know Jesus at all or it has a fuzzy, out-of-focus picture of him that hardly looks like him at all. “The Plan” is that the world will see Jesus clearly, and in seeing Jesus, the world will see The Father.

“These disciples know you sent me. I have revealed you to them and will continue to do so.” As followers of Jesus, we know a couple of things the world simply doesn’t know: 1) We know Jesus was sent by the Father to redeem (all) the world, the world God loves.  2) Jesus has revealed himself to us, we have believed his message, and Jesus continues to reveal the true nature of the Father to us as we open our minds and hearts to the Truth his Spirit is revealing to us. He keeps on revealing if we keep on receiving. If we stop receiving the Truth, we begin losing what we have.

“Then your love for me will be in them, and I will be in them.” If we’re receiving Jesus’ revelation of the Father, what’s in us will be love: God’s love for Jesus and Jesus’ love for the world. That’s unconditional love, friends. And it’s when that love is in us that we truly represent Jesus and that we truly represent the Father. The real high-definition picture of the Father looks like this: Love not hate, unity not division, truth not lies, sacrificial service not demanded rights and privileges, giving not taking, encouragement not slander, forgiveness not bitterness, hope not despair, life not death.

Prayer:

Father, This is another one of those tough times down here. You’ve seen them all and you see them way more clearly and compassionately than I do! But I’m grieving that the picture has become distorted and even politicized.  Please clean our lenses so the true picture comes through, to us and from us, bright and clear. For the world’s sake! Amen.