Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of North America

Thursday within the Octave of the Feast of the Holy Trinity

Posted on June 16, 2022 by Pastor Dulas under Devotions
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Scripture: St. John 15:18-26 (NKJV)
 
15:18 “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. 20 Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also. 21 But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 He who hates Me hates My Father also. 24 If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin; but now they have seen and also hated both Me and My Father. 25 But this happened that the word might be fulfilled which is written in their law, ‘They hated Me without a cause.’
 
26 “But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me.”
 
Devotion
 
Christ will send the Helper—God the Holy Spirit—from the Father. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, but He also proceeds from God the Son since God the Father and God the Son are united in essence. The Helper is the co-eternal and co-majestic third person of the Holy Trinity, for He is “The spirit of your Father” (Matt. 10:20) and “the Spirit of Christ” (Rom. 8:9).
 
When Christ sends the Helper, “He will testify of Me,” Jesus says. God the Holy Spirit testifies of Christ through the apostles’ preaching, both spoken and written in the Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament. His testimony of Christ creates contrition and faith in people’s hearts. His testimony also fortifies believers against the world’s hatred and vitriol. He testifies to us that we are not of the world. He has transferred us out of the kingdom of this world into the kingdom of God the Son, where there is forgiveness, peace, joy, and the newness of life. There will be persecutions and crosses to bear for those whom Christ has chosen out of the world, but those will be no greater than the persecutions and cross that God the Son bore for us and our salvation. The Helper testifies to Christ’s victory and teaches us that His victory over sin, death, and the devil is ours as well.
 
Prayer: Almighty and Everlasting God, Who hast given unto us, Thy servants, grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the Eternal Trinity, and in the power of the Divine Majesty to worship the Unity: we beseech Thee, that Thou wouldest keep us steadfast in this faith, and evermore defend us from all adversities; Who livest and reignest, one God, world without end. Amen.
 
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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