On This Day: Knowing Jesus by his Word and his Spirit

As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” (Matthew 24:3)

 

   Yes, reading that really got me thinking. Jealously. Not in sinful jealousy. More like a longing for that day John spoke about when he said,

“Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (I John 3:2).

To SEE Jesus AS HE IS with my own eyes seeing his eyes looking at me, will be the most remarkable feeling of “referencing” I could ever experience.

   One thing that has been on the rather “amazing” side of things has been the way God has ministered to me through his word in relation to a book of false teachings I have been responding to (Brad Jersak’s, “A More Christlike Word”). The book is full of what amounts to the serpent’s first words in the Garden of Eden, “Did God actually say…?” And it directs people to look at an authority external to God’s word just as Satan did in speaking with Eve.

   This morning, along with Jesus’ warnings about watching out for false teachers and their false teachings, I looked at how the partnership of “the word” we have in the Bible and “the Spirit” we have in the church, is what leads us in “the mind of Christ” the way Jesus did in person with his disciples. I will share one example to keep this brief.

   We have this amazing rhyming thought of “be filled with the Spirit” and “let the word of Christ dwell in your richly. By “rhyming” I mean they sound the same in thought as we would say two words sound the same in rhyming a song or poem. And the way we know they rhyme is by what is stated in the context of both expressions.

   When Paul wrote to the Ephesians “be filled with the Spirit”, it was followed by “addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Ephesians 5:18-21). And when he wrote the Colossians to “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly,” it was followed by “teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God” (Colossians 3:16).

   In other words, to be filled with the Spirit is synonymous with letting the word of Christ (as is now collected into the Bible) dwell in us richly. We have the word and the Spirit. They lead us in everything. Not quite the way it would have been for the disciples sitting with Jesus on the Mount of Olives. But it is the way God speaks to us while we wait for Jesus' return when we also will be with him in the most real and personal of ways.

 

© 2024 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)