John 17 - Love In Them (#7)
John 17:25-26
By Bunni Pounds
"O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me. And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” John 17:25-26
As believers in Jesus we have experienced and tasted something that the world doesn't understand. We have experienced the love of God.
Here, Jesus was praying to the Father before He went to the cross, acknowledging that He knew the Father, and that He had revealed Him to His disciples to the point where they could say that they too knew the Father. Then He prayed for one more thing: "that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them."
Here is God (in the form of Jesus), speaking to God (the Father), by God (the Holy Spirit), concerning the love of God being given to us. Powerful!
He wants us to know the love that is in the heart of the Trinity for one another. Imagine how strong the love of the Father is for the Son. Imagine the love of the Son of God for the Father. God wants us to have that kind of love. He wants us to know it deep in our souls.
The beauty of this is that Jesus was actually praying for the Holy Spirit to come to the people of God, and to shed that love abroad in our hearts.
"And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever…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. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you." John 14:16-18
The Holy Spirit is so critical to have in our lives because it is through Him that we have communion with the Godhead. He is our Helper. He is the one who communicates the love of God to us. When we are born again, the Holy Spirit regenerates our spirit. However, there is also an empowerment—a "coming upon" of the Holy Spirit—like on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2. It is this baptism of power that enables us to commune with the Spirit.
The Holy Spirit wants to have a relationship with us and make that LOVE extremely clear in our hearts. He wants to reveal the love of the Father to us and release a dynamic love in our hearts for the Son of God. He wants to create a “love fest” on the inside of us with explosions of the love of God.
In this day and hour, we must engage with the Holy Spirit – talking to Him, praying with Him, and seeking His comfort and guidance. We need to pull from the treasure chest on the inside of us and the fire within to live out the call of God for our lives. This does not happen by accident – we must be intentional - engaging with the Holy Spirit.
The love of God is deep. It is beyond words or understanding. Only the Spirit of God can show us the depths of the love of God for us and the world around us. Communing with the Holy Spirit is essential to the revelation of the love of God in our lives.
God is after voluntary lovers. He won't force us into anything. Knowing Jesus and walking in, and with, the Holy Spirit is life eternal.
It is what we will be doing for all eternity. What is keeping us from starting on that journey now?
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