Day 13: The Power of the Forgotten God

Day 13
Theme: The Power of the Forgotten God
Passage: John 16: 5-16
5"Now I am going to him who sent me, yet none of you asks me, 'Where are you going?' 6Because I have said these things, you are filled with grief. 7But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.

How many times have you read this scripture? Maybe once or twice, others maybe have read it hundreds of time. Yet did you catch what is being said here?
“It is for your good that I am going away.”

Did you really read that? It is for YOUR GOOD! Put this in the context of when it was written. The disciples just watch the emboldened religious group of the Pharisees crucify Jesus and now are waiting on them to do the same to each and every one of them.

But Jesus, their security blanket, says I am leaving but it is for your good that I go. Really think about that. Jesus, the SON OF GOD, who has just spent 3 years proving he is LORD through signs, and preaching, teaching among other items. That same Jesus is now saying he is leaving them for the second time (first when he died and now again). Can you imagine what they were thinking? He is alive so now he will be the CONQUORING Messiah we have heard about. But that isn’t what Jesus had in mind.

“Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you.” So let me get this straight, you just came back and are leaving again? And I am suppose to believe that it is for my good? So let me guess “This is going to hurt me more than it will you.” Or is it “It’s not you, it’s me”… It just feels like a bad break up.

Yet as always, God had a plan that was better then ours. This Holy Spirit came down so that we could live in a new way. A More powerful way.

Don’t believe it, move forward to the story before Pentecost. All the disciples bunkering down in a room, SCARED, ALONE, nervous… Or even back up a bit to the night of Judas’ betrayal. Romans come, Judas kisses and the disciples RUN! Only Peter and John are any where’s near the trial area. The rest who had been by Jesus’ side for 3 years ran to hide. So we see them again hiding, cowering. But the rest of the story, the catalyst that changed them from cowards to world evangelists willing to die for their faith was the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Paul in Romans says “It stands to reason, doesn't it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he'll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself?” (Rom 8:11 MSG).

So if the same spirit that was enough power to raise Jesus from the dead lives in you how then should you be living? Wouldn’t this cause you to be more bold? More trusting of God?

Living out our faith daily is not something we can easily do on our own. We forget too quickly everything we have learned, experienced or been shown by God. We get easily distracted. We ignore the car on the side of the road. The nudges from the Holy Spirit to help them. We stammer and skirt the issues like Moses. We just say to ourselves “I can’t do that”. Yet think about a child, throwing a fit about picking up their room. “I can’t do that. There’s too much”. Have you ever thought about the word can’t, and realized that it is a “CHOOSE NOT TO”? So in essence when we tell God we CAN’T we are telling him 2 things: A) I CHOOSE NOT TO and B) He is not BIG enough to do it through me.


Reflection:
Is there something that you need to give up to God today that he has been asking you to do but you keep ignoring him?


What in your life have you being using the word’s “I can’t” when God asks you to step up to a challenge?

Is God Big Enough to work in your life?