Read John 16

“These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have
peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be
of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”
(John 16:33)

Thoughts… I hate to be blindsided, and I am sure you do, too. Nobody likes to be caught off guard by bad news or troubling circumstances. The surprise of such experiences makes these difficulties doubly devastating.

That’s why Jesus gives us a divine heads-up in John 16. Standing at both ends of this chapter, like bookends, Jesus gave his followers an FYI on some of the challenges they would surely face. In verse one, he says, “These things I have spoken to you, that you should not be made to stumble.” Then again in verse 33, the very last verse of the chapter, he reminds them of the insider information he has provided so that when it takes place, they won’t be unsettled by it.

Just what insider information did Jesus provide? Simply that your faith is going to get you into a fair amount of trouble in this life. People are not going to like you because you follow Jesus. You will be persecuted not only for the stand you personally take on moral issues, but just for the position your Christianity represents. In fact, some people will even hate you with a murderous zeal disguised as religious passion simply because of the Christian life you live (verse 2). Without even trying, your lifestyle of faith will bring them under such conviction that they will find it intolerable and want to do away with you. Things may get a bit rough, so be ready for it, Jesus says.

The good news, however, is that you will never have to face these difficulties alone. The fact is, through Christ you will overcome each challenge victoriously, even the most extreme challenge of staring into the face of martyrdom. You will overcome because you know what is coming (verses 1,4, 33). You will be victorious because Jesus has already been victorious under these same pressures (verse 33). You will be able to face these situations with courage and grace because of the presence of the Divine Helper, the Holy Spirit (verse 7.) You will win in the hour of trial because the Sovereign Father who loves you (verse 27) will hear and answer your every prayer (verses 23-24).

Knowing ahead of time what is coming, and knowing that your victory has been secured already, you can go about your day, and come what may—trouble, hardship, disappointment, failure, persecution, hatred, even death—live in the wonderful reality of what Christ promised:

“In Me, you will have peace!”

Prayer… Lord, I don’t know what this day holds, but I know Who holds this day. And I know Who holds my life in his hands. So I thank you ahead of time for the peace of God that will guard my heart and ease my mind today no matter what circumstances I will face.

One More Thing… “God knows our situation; He will not judge us as if we had no difficulties to overcome. What matters is the sincerity and perseverance of our will to overcome them.” —C.S. Lewis

Read John 15

“If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask
what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this
My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit;
so you will be My disciples.”
(John 15:7-8)

Thoughts… Have you ever been around fruity Christians? Not the kind you are thinking. I’m talking about the believer who seems to enjoy more of God’s blessings than the ordinary Christian? They tend to get more prayers answered than you, live in a greater degree of Divine favor than you, appear to have more of an inside track with the Almighty than you, and definitely produce more spiritual fruit than you.

They’re fruity—their lives produce a lot of fruit.

Perhaps you wish you could live their kind of blessed life, but secretly feel a little selfish in asking God for it. Don’t feel selfish one second longer. God wants you to experience that kind of abundant life, too. In fact, Jesus said the God-blessed life is arguably the best proof that you are his disciple. Furthermore, he pointed out that your fruitfulness as his disciple is what brings much glory to his Father. The fruitier you are, the greater glory that goes to God. The more God answers your prayers, the more he receives the praise.

Wanting to live the God-blessed life is not selfish at all. It is no more selfish than God wanting to be glorified by giving you your blessings. It is simply the rule of God’s kingdom to ask for his favor and to live in his blessing.

That’s what God wants for you. So stop feeling weird about asking and start asking expectantly. What do you desire for your life? Ask for it. If you are connected to Jesus—and make no mistake, that is the key to receiving—the Father will allow you to bear not just a little, but a whole bunch of fruit. That what he wants for his disciples, and that includes you.

If you are not at the level of fruitiness that you would like to be, that ought to be your first prayer today.

Prayer… Lord, I want to bear much fruit. I want to glorify you by being abundantly blessed. Keep me plugged into the Vine and abiding in your Word so that Kingdom life will flow from the Father into me and produce the kind of fruit that brings much glory to you.

One More Thing… “Beware in your prayers, above everything else, of limiting God, not only by unbelief, but by fancying that you know what He can do. Expect unexpected things, ‘above all that we ask or think’. Each time, before you Intercede, be quiet first, and worship God in His glory. Think of what He can do, and how He delights to hear the prayers of His redeemed people. Think of your place and privilege in Christ, and expect great things!” —Andrew Murray

Read John 14

“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works
that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he
will do, because I go to My Father. And whatever you
ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may
be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything
in My name, I will do it.”
(John 14:12-14)

Thoughts… That is a pretty amazing promise Jesus made to his disciples—and by extension—to you and me!

Jesus was laying out his succession plans for God’s kingdom. He told his disciples that he needed to go back to the Father, and in his absence, they would carry on his works in the world, extending the kingdom wherever they went. And although he would no longer be with them physically, he would be with them—and more importantly, live in them and work through them, by the indwelling Holy Spirit:

“I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.” (John 14:16-18)

Literally, to his followers who would completely yield their lives in obedience to his word, commitment to his purposes, and availability to his work, “We [the Father, Son and Holy Spirit] will come to him and make Our home with him.” (John 14:23)

Those words are from the lips of Jesus himself, and they are meant for you! Do you believe them? If you do, they will transform you to the core of your being. They will radically alter the way you perceive yourself and interact with your world. And they will lead you to have the kind of impact for Christ in this world you have always dreamed of having.

The story is told of a private in the army of the Greek general, Alexander the Great, who ran after and retrieved the general’s runaway horse. When this lowly soldier brought the animal back, Alexander offered his appreciation by saying, “Thank you, Captain!”

With one word the private had been promoted. When the general said it, the private believed it. He immediately went to the quartermaster, selected a new captain’s uniform and put it on. He went to the officer’s quarters and selected his bunk. He went to the officer’s mess and had a meal. Because General Alexander had said it, the private took him at his word and changed his life accordingly. He was simply now doing life in the authority of Alexander.

Why don’t you take the word of Someone far greater than Alexander and change your life accordingly. If you will, greater works will you do!

Prayer… Lord, I believe what you said. On this day, I ask the Father, as you have commissioned me to do, to empower and embolden me to do the very kingdom works that you would do if you were in my place. And may all glory go back to you!

One More Thing… “Whether we like it or not, asking is the rule of the Kingdom. If you may have everything by asking in His Name, and nothing without asking, I beg you to see how absolutely vital [asking in] prayer is.” —Charles Spurgeon

Read John 13

“If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.”
(John 13:17)

Thoughts… If we are going to be the kind of Christ-followers that God can bless, our behavior will have to align with our beliefs. What we “know” must become what we “do.” Specifically, we will have to live like Jesus lived, which means serving like Jesus served.

Jesus made that perfectly clear when he said, “You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you.” (John 13:13-15)

So why is serving such a big deal?

First, quite simply, we are called to serve! Paul writes in Philippians 2:5-7, “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who being in very nature God…took on the very nature of a servant.” In Galatians 5:13, Paul urged us to “serve one another in love.” When we are serving, we are fulfilling our basic Christian calling, and taking a huge step toward the blessed life Jesus promised.

Second, we were created to serve! Christians serve! Like a fish swims and a bird flies, Christians serve! Ephesians 2:10 reminds us “We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

Think about it: Before you were even conceived, God laid out specific plans just for you. You are not just an after-thought; you don’t just exist; you are on this earth not just to be a potted plant, you were born not just to consume, but to contribute. God shaped you to serve him. That places a big responsibility on your shoulders. Who you are is not just a product of random DNA from your mom and dad getting together and saying, “Hey, nice genes…what are you doing later tonight?” No—God was there at the moment you were conceived, even before, according to Ephesians 2:10, deliberately shaping you to serve his purposes through your life.

Third, service is what we contribute to the Body of Christ. God has a very specific purpose in mind for our call to serve: Not just go around helping people out randomly—although that is not a bad idea—but he specifically created us, converted us and called us to contribute to the life, health and mission of the local church.

I Peter 4:10 says, “Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.” How is God’s grace distributed? Not just in our private times with God…not just in corporate worship as we experience his marvelous presence…but as we serve one another. After salvation, serving is the primary means of God’s grace coming into our lives.

Fourth, service is what captures the world’s attention. Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount, “Let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father. (Matthew 5:16, NLT) Here in John 13, Jesus said, “By this will all men know that you are my disciples: That you have love for one another.” (verse 35)

It’s by authentic servanthood that we become living proof of a loving God.

Roy Hattersley, a columnist for the U.K. Guardian is an outspoken atheist laments, “It ought to be possible to live a Christian life without being a Christian.” But after watching the Salvation Army lead several other faith-based organizations in the Hurricane Katrina relief effort, he wrote,

“Notable by their absence were teams from rationalist societies, free thinkers’ clubs, and atheists’ associations—the sort of people who scoff at religion’s intellectual absurdity… [Christians] are the people most likely to take the risks and make the sacrifices involved in helping others. Civilized people do not believe that drug addiction and male prostitution offend against divine ordinance. But those who do are the men and women most willing to change the fetid bandages, replace the sodden sleeping bags, and—probably most difficult of all—argue, without a trace of impatience, that the time has come for some serious medical treatment. The only possible conclusion is that faith comes with a packet of moral imperatives that, while they do not condition the attitude of all believers, influence enough of them to make [Christians] morally superior to atheists like me.”

The spotlight never shines more brightly on Jesus than when Christians serve. “By this, all will know that you are my disciples.”

Fifth, service causes happiness your soul. There is something ennobling about serving others. Paul tells us in Acts 20:35, “Remember that our Lord Jesus said, ‘More blessings come from giving than from receiving.’”

Do you want to live an incredibly blessed life? Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

Prayer… Lord, just as you came not to be served but to serve and give your life for the salvation of the world, so I want to serve your purposes through my life. Make me a servant, just life you.

One More Thing… “Just as a servant knows that he must first obey his master in all things, so the surrender to an implicit and unquestionable obedience must become the essential characteristic of our lives.” —Andrew Murray

Read John 12

“For the poor you have with you always,
but Me you do not have always.”
(John 12:8)

Thoughts… To call someone a “Judas” is to label him a betrayer of the worst kind. It is an accusation that is reserved only for the most devastating kind of relational offense, since to call another Judas usually implies an irreparable breach in the relationship. After all, who wants to have anything to do with a backstabbing betrayer?

Judas, by his act of betrayal, became a name that will forever live in infamy, to paraphrase Franklin Roosevelt. But what Judas did to Jesus didn’t make him evil, it only revealed the evil that had, like cancer, been eating away at his character for a long time. The fact is, in Jesus’ own words, “one of you [disciples] is a devil!” (John 6:70). And Judas was a devil of the worst kind: A church-going one. As Joseph Hall has said, “No devil is so dangerous as the religious devil.”

As you might imagine of someone who would betray the Lord, Judas exhibited some other character flaws that mostly go unnoticed in light of his more famous sin. In this John 12 account, we are told that he protested Mary’s act of anointing Jesus with expensive perfume because it could have fetched a handsome price at the market, and money from the sale could have been used to help the poor. Of course, this notorious disciple had a hidden motive. Since he was treasurer for this little band of disciples, he apparently dipped his hand in the till from time to time to fund his own needs. Judas was not only a betrayer, but according to John he was also a thief.

Yet as the Gospels are prone to do, there is another side to Judas that is uncomfortably close to so many people who sit beside you every Sunday in the pews of your church. They are the ones who, like clockwork, criticize everything from the room temperature to the sound level to the length and content of the sermon to the unfriendliness of the people to the building campaign to the call for financial commitment, ad nauseam. No matter what, they are never satisfied; there is always a better alternative—and although they are quick to protest, their solutions are never quite clear or doable. In truth, rather than wanting change, they simply want to gripe. They may smile and sing and put a coin or two in the offering plate, yet they are unwitting tools of Satan. The great Swiss theologian Karl Bath was speaking of such people when he said, “The devil may also make use of morality.” They are very spiritual devils!

It wasn’t only Judas that Jesus had in mind when he uttered this gentle but pointed rebuke, “for the poor you have always.” He was speaking to the legion of church folk who believe their gift to the church is the ministry of criticism. In truth, their chronic criticism betrays a deeper agenda and uglier issues of character.

Don’t get me wrong—constructive criticism is not a bad thing, if offered in the right spirit, and conflict that is resolved Biblically and in a Christ-like spirit can actually strengthen the church. It is chronic criticizers I am talking about. In truth, they suffer from the Judas Syndrome. Not betrayal, not thievery; destructive criticism is their sin.

So here’s the deal: If you have to be around someone who suffers this sort of Judas Syndrome, lovingly confront them, as Jesus did. If they don’t see their sin and change their ways, establish some boundaries with them. Don’t let them poison you and cripple your church.

And most of all, don’t be one! Just remember, no one has ever built a statue to a betrayer, a thief, or a critic.

Prayer… Lord, keep me from the Judas Syndrome—the sin of covering my own character flaws and deflecting Holy Spirit conviction meant for me with destructive criticism of others. Show me where I need personal reformation, and give me to courage to deal with issues that are keeping me from greater intimacy with you.

One More Thing… “The devil loves ‘curing’ a small fault by giving you a great one.” —C.S. Lewis

Read John 11

Then the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered a council and
said, “What shall we do? For this Man works many signs. If
we let Him alone like this, everyone will believe in Him,
and the Romans will come and take away both
our place and nation.”
(John 11:47-48)

Thoughts… This chapter is amazing on a couple of levels. First of all, the raising of Lazarus from the dead has to be one of the most dramatic miracles in the entire Bible, outside of Christ’s own resurrection.

This is a perfect set up for the authentication of Jesus’ messianic ministry—and he knows it. He knows Lazarus’ sickness will lead to death, yet he waits until the man dies to come and pray for him. He knows that God the Father has given him authority and power over death, yet he prays anyway in front of the crowd that God will release resurrection power through him to bring forth this man from death. He knows that the Jews are criticizing his inability to prevent this death. In their minds, he is just another so-called messiah—all hat and no cattle. He knows that everyone in this scene is thinking that after four days in the tomb, death has done its nasty business on the body of Lazarus—as the King James says, “He stinketh!”—and it is well beyond resurrection.

This is the perfect set up for one of the outstanding acts of God ever. God seems to operate at his best in these situations. Yes, Jesus could have gone to Bethany much earlier and healed Lazarus before it got to this point, but that miracle would not have even come close to the glory this miracle would bring. God had an agenda—he always does: To glorify himself.

The Jewish leaders who opposed Jesus had an agenda too. They loved the status quo—their positions of power, the religious monopoly they held over the people, the spiritual racket that kept them in their places of wealth and honor. They had come to despise Jesus because he was threatening their way of life. His radical message and rising popularity were making their cozy way of life vulnerable to a Roman crackdown, and the potential loss of that prevented them from seeing and accepting even an outstanding act of God like Lazarus’ resurrection.

That, too, is an amazing part to this story. It is almost as amazing as Lazarus’ resurrection. The Jews had witnessed this incredible, undeniable miracle with their own eyes, yet rejected it because, at least in their minds, it threatened their way of life.

That is the problem with personal agendas. They keep us from seeing how far superior God’s agenda is to our own. We do everything in our power to resist and avoid the short-term discomfort God may be allowing in our lives in order to preserve the comfort that we have come to prefer—even at the expense of a resurrection.

How do we do this? Just think about it—you will probably come of with plenty of examples. Have you ever stayed home from church because you had a headache? You didn’t feel well enough to go to the very place that prays for the sick to be healed. Have you withheld a financial gift from God because that money was dedicated to something you wanted to do? Have you ever sat in your pew when the pastor called people forward for prayer because you were uncomfortable and worried about what people might think? Have you ever held back on an adventure of faith because you felt unqualified and ill-equipped for the challenge?

It is most likely that you have an agenda that is different than God’s—perhaps more than a few. I know that I do.

What do you say we make a spiritual determination today that our agenda will no longer control our lives? If you will reject the status quo for the risky adventure of following God’s agenda, you will be on the cusp of the adventure of your life—maybe even a resurrection!

Prayer… Lord, show me where my love affair with the status quo is keeping me from personal resurrection. And infuse me with the courage to jettison comfort for the risky adventure of faith.

One More Thing… “Faith is to believe what we do not see; and the reward of this faith is to see what we believe.” —St. Augustine

Read John 10

The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to
destroy. I have come that they may have life, and
that they may have it more abundantly.
(John 10:10)

Thoughts… You have an enemy. His name is Satan. Jesus called him a thief and a liar. His main weapons are subtly and deception—and he’s pretty good at it, since he has been at it since the beginning of human history.

He hates God, and everything of God, which includes you. This enemy has a nefarious plan for your life. He wants to rob you of the abundance of God, destroy your identity and destiny as a child of God, and kill you, body, soul and most of all, spirit, keeping you from eternity with God. In fact, even right now he is strategically and specifically working to do you in.

The problem is, you may be oblivious to the work of this enemy. Out of ignorance, disbelief, or plain old lassitude and indifference, Satan goes about his evil work undetected by most.

George Barna, a Christian researcher and pollster, asked people to respond to this statement in a national survey: “Satan, is not a living being, but is a symbol of evil.” Among those who claimed to be born again, 32% agreed strongly, 11% agreed somewhat and 5% didn’t know. That means that of the total number responding, 48% of born again believers either agreed that Satan is only symbolic or weren’t sure!

Barna’s findings would suggest that half of you reading this blog today, in spite of what the Bible clearly teaches, think of the devil as a boogie-man from a spiritual fairy tale, not a real being bent on destroying you.

Here is the Biblical reality that I want to convince you of today: Satan and his demonic legions are alive and well on Planet Earth. Satan is the enemy of God, and because he can’t do anything to God, he chooses to attack what is most precious to God—that is, you.

But here is the Good News: Hebrews 2:14 says that Jesus came “so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil.” I John 3:8 reminds us, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.”

In Luke 10:17-19, we are told, “the seventy-two returned with joy and said, ‘Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.’ Jesus replied, ‘I saw Satan fall like lightening from heaven. I have given you authority to…overcome all the power of the enemy, and nothing will harm you.’”

I like that, don’t you? I prefer a fight I know I’ll win! Our victory over Satan is guaranteed.

So here’s the deal: We win—but only if we stay alert to the conflict, wise up to the ways of the enemy, and take him on in the authority and power of Jesus name.

Keep that in mind today—and go give ‘em heaven!

Prayer… Lord, keep me wise to the ways of the enemy today. Lead me away from temptation and keep me from the evil one. Help me to walk in the victory over Satan that you secured at Calvary.

One More Thing… “The enemy will not see you vanish into God’s company without an effort to reclaim you.” —C.S. Lewis