Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of North America

Thursday after Whit-Sunday

Posted on May 24, 2018 by Pastor Dulas under Devotions
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Scripture: St. John 14:1-22 (NKJV)

14:1 “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. 4 And where I go you know, and the way you know.”

5 Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?”

6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. 7 If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.”

8 Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.”

9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works. 11 Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves. 12 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. 13 And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.

15 “If you love Me, keep My commandments. 16 And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—17 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. 18 I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. 19 A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also. 20 At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. 21 He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.” 22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, “Lord, how is it that You will manifest Yourself to us, and not to the world?”

Devotion

“Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me.” Immediately before our Lord Jesus speaks these words he had just told Peter that he would deny Him three times before the rooster crowed. This is in the midst of the Lord telling His disciples that He was about to be betrayed and killed. It is understandable that the Apostles were a bit unsettled by our Lord’s words.

Our Lord, however, does not leave them in their angst. He gives them Himself as God. Believing in the Lord Jesus would mean absolutely nothing if He were not God. It would be no different than believing in any other man on this planet as the means of salvation. But, our Lord Jesus is true God. Therefore, trusting in Him eases our troubled hearts.

He goes to prepare a place for His disciples, and us, in Heaven. He offers up His life as a ransom for all the betrayal and denying that His disciples are about to commit. It is on account of the disobedience of us that our Lord offers up His life as a ransom for us. And in so doing He prepares a place for us in Heaven.

He opened the door to Heaven at His resurrection, when He made clear that the Father had accepted the sacrifice of His Son on our behalf. Now the door to the grave is open, and so is the gate of Heaven for all those who trust on the Lord Jesus.

We pray: O God, who taught the hearts of Thy faithful people by sending to them the light of Thy Holy Spirit, bring us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things and evermore to rejoice in His holy comfort; through Jesus Christ. Amen.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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