Tuesday, May 16, 2023

 

Tuesday, May 16, 2023


Psalm 105:1-22

Exodus 35:20-36:7

John 14:8-31


If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.


It might have been an old Enid Blyton story, where two children were talking about the deep mysteries of God. One was a Christian, and she was bringing her friend to faith. They spoke about what Jesus promised about the power of prayer – that our heavenly Father knows all the good things we need and will give them to us – but had run into problems on the practical side of things. The friend was complaining to the Christian child that, while she had asked Jesus very seriously and often for a pet pony, no animal had yet been forthcoming. In Enid Blyton’s story there was a wholesome ending with a sensible and hopeful moral. We are grown-ups, however, and looking for a silver-lining in the cloud of our disappointments tend to have higher stakes than whether Santa gives us what we want for Christmas or not.


Jesus wraps today’s sentence in a long monologue about the nature of the Triune God. This is where we need to go if we want to know what He means when He tells us that He will do whatever we ask of Him. Jesus is in the Father, and the Father is in Jesus, and we are in Jesus if we do what He tells us: which is to love God and love one another. Also, the Holy Spirit of God – our Helper, the Advocate – has been sent by the Father (just as Jesus was sent) to be with us forever.


This goes deeper than individual persons running around and doing their own thing, crying out to the gods when things don’t go our way. The Persons of God are “in” one another, sent and received, so totally connected that the Father, Son and Spirit are the one God. There is an intimacy that is impossible for us mere humans to comprehend. And yet, we are called to come into this relationship between the three Persons that binds them together as One.


If, in the name of Jesus, we ask God for anything, God will do it. Also, if God asks us for anything, we are to do it. There is to be no conflict of interest. Asking, giving and receiving is all bound up in the one will we share with our God. This requires a deep level of trust. We are desperately concerned for our own self-interest; but so is God. God knows more than we do, and so rather than trying to discern whether God wants us to have a pony for Christmas is of far less relevance than accepting that no matter what, God has our best interests at heart, and will always deliver what is best for us.

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