"By this we
believe…." Jesus answered them, "Do you now believe?" —John
16:30-31
“Now we believe….” But
Jesus asks, “Do you…? Indeed the hour is coming…that you…will leave Me alone” (John
16:31-32). Many Christian workers have left Jesus Christ alone and yet tried to
serve Him out of a sense of duty, or because they sense a need as a result of
their own discernment. The reason for this is actually the absence of the
resurrection life of Jesus. Our soul has gotten out of intimate contact with
God by leaning on our own religious understanding (see Proverbs 3:5-6).
This is not deliberate sin and there is no punishment attached to it. But once
a person realizes how he has hindered his understanding of Jesus Christ, and
caused uncertainties, sorrows, and difficulties for himself, it is with shame
and remorse that he has to return.
We need to rely on the
resurrection life of Jesus on a much deeper level than we do now. We should get
in the habit of continually seeking His counsel on everything, instead of
making our own commonsense decisions and then asking Him to bless them. He
cannot bless them; it is not in His realm to do so, and those decisions are
severed from reality. If we do something simply out of a sense of duty, we are
trying to live up to a standard that competes with Jesus Christ. We become a
prideful, arrogant person, thinking we know what to do in every situation. We
have put our sense of duty on the throne of our life, instead of enthroning the
resurrection life of Jesus. We are not told to “walk in the light” of our
conscience or in the light of a sense of duty, but to “walk in the light as
He is in the light…” (1 John 1:7). When we do something out of a sense of duty,
it is easy to explain the reasons for our actions to others. But when we do
something out of obedience to the Lord, there can be no other explanation— just
obedience. That is why a saint can be so easily ridiculed and misunderstood.
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