What I have seen in the Father’s presence

“I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you are doing what you have heard from your father.” (John 8:38)

 

Today is the first day of the new year 2023 and the first Sunday. What is the most important thing for a new beginning? It is for us to make sure we know Christ, the Lord of Faith, right. There were also some among Jews who believed in and followed Jesus. However they were not yet in a state where they had become mature disciples of the Lord. If Jesus’ disciple you must know who Jesus is and receive His lessons, and maintain spiritual exchanges with Him. If do so, you can become a person who enjoys the true freedom of the soul. Everyone can meet God the Father through Jesus, and become a free man in God spiritually.

 

A great matter for man is to know oneself. The words “Know thyself” written on the temple of Apollo at Delphi is a significant philosophical proposition for everyone. That is a natural theme of the common, but there are various ways to solve it and the results. Even if the methods are different, it would be fine if the results were the same, but in the world there is no path to spiritual salvation where the methods are different and the results are the same. Peter the Apostle testified clearly in 4:12 of the Acts of the Apostles, “Salvation is found in no one else (except Jesus the name), for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” By knowing oneself right all the problems of life can be solved smoothly. Jews had been waiting for the Messiah following God’s promise long time ago. They had to become his disciples then because they met the Messiah who appeared before themselves.

There are many people who want to follow Jesus thinking He is a great saint or a good teacher. But not many people serve Him, as true disciples of Jesus. In John 8:31, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples,” Jesus said. Here ‘if you hold to my teaching’ means ‘if you live according to Jesus’ lesson’. And He, “Then you will know the truth,” said. The complete Truth is the Lord God only. Jesus also said, that if one follows His lessons, he will know God, the truth. And Jesus said Himself as the way, truth, and the life. If so, it means that Jesus is not only the way to God the father, but also that Jesus is God Oneself. Here the core of Christ’s teachings is the existential contents on who Jesus the Savior is.

What the Truth does is, it frees the human soul. In case people hear about the needy of freedom, most people will ask back, as the Jews in the text said, what else needs more why there to be another freedom to themselves living free at present. According to Jesus’ words, unless one lives in God, he lives as a servant of sin. Freedom in sin, not true freedom, is incomplete freedom. True freedom is a life that lives with God forever. Jesus, the Son of God, is the one who gives men eternal freedom. Jesus said that, but the Jews questioned Him and tried to kill Him. They were Abraham’s descendants in body, but they did not follow Abraham’s deeds of the faith. We thus should know definitely the point what’s important is not the external name, but the faith of the deed.

John the Apostle said, “Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.” in 1 John 3:15. Hating Him because Jesus had told truth was same mind to trying to kill Him. They eventually caught Jesus and made Him die on the cross. Jewish or not, people fall into two kinds in spiritual sense. That is, they are either those born anew in the Spirit or those belong to the evil spirit. The Satan’s basic purpose is to do against God, so those who belong to evil spirit have no choice but to confront Jesus and those who believe in Him. Therefore, a person needs to check where one’s spirit belongs. If one denies to believe in Jesus the Savior and he seeks satisfaction in an unrighteous life, he must realize that oneself is followed Satan and turn back to the Holy Spirit.

 

Children are born to resemble their parents. Children’s thoughts and behaviors are made, by inheriting genes of parents, and by seeing how the parents act. Jesus Christ is the same One as God the Father, so Jesus showed the Father instead and delivered the Father’s words. The foolish Jews asked Jesus to show God the Father, but Jesus said that whoever saw Jesus the Son saw God the Father. Do not speak you don’t who Christ is though believing in God, but you would have to know what God’s reality is through meeting God in Christ.

 

(Written by Koonoh, Pastor of JDO Presbyterian Church in Korea, on Jan 1st 2023)