John 16:12

John 16:12 says. I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.  We might think that those following Christ could bear to hear anything He told them, but He said they weren't ready.  Verse thirteen adds, Howbeit, when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak, and he will show you things to come.  They were not ready to hear everything yet because the Holy Spirit was not there to guide them. We as His followers today do not have that disadvantage.  We have the Holy Spirit to guide us from the moment we accept Christ as our Savior.  He will reveal the truth to us in all things if we are only willing to listen.  We will never be led astray by the Holy Spirit. Even as a new Christian, as we struggle with questions about what is right or wrong, the Holy Spirit is there to reveal the truth to us.  He had not yet come to Jesus's followers while Jesus was one the earth.  Verse fourteen continues, He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shew it unto you.  The Holy Spirit did not come to glorify Himself, but to glorify Jesus. Again, I do not claim to understand all about the Trinity, but I do know that Jesus is the Messiah and the Holy Spirit only points us to the truth of God the Father.  The Holy Spirit is here to protect and enlighten the followers of Christ.  Verse fifteen concludes, All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I that he shall take of mine, and show all it unto you.  We are not left defenseless or in half truths.  As followers of Christ, we have the Holy Spirit to reveal to us all things of the Heavenly Father.  If we find ourselves in situations that seem hopeless, we only have to remember that the Holy Spirit empowers us and will show us the way that God would have us go.  We are God's people, and He is with us forever.

John 16:7

John 16:7 says, Nevertheless, I tell you the truth; It is expedient that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you.  Jesus was close to completing His mission on earth, and not only was His death not a reason for sadness or doubt on the part of His disciples, but it was also expedient.  We may at times feel that when things go badly that God has abandoned us.  We, like Jesus' earthly disciples, must never lose faith that God is in control.  If we lose something that we feel is important, we can be sure God has something better in store.  Jesus was limited by the fact that He had come as a man, but when He left, after the crucifixion, God was coming as a Spirit, without any physical limitations.  The Holy Spirit will not be just with some believers at some time but will be with all believers for time everlasting.  Verse eight adds, And when He is come, He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:  The Holy Spirit did not come just to fulfill the desires of Christ's followers, but for specific purposes.  Verse nine continues, Of sin, because they believe not on Me.  The only way we can be saved from our sins is through the death, burial and resurrection of Christ for our sins, and the Holy Spirit convicts us of this.  We will never be without excuse.  Verse ten states, Of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you shall see Me no more.  Jesus is the only One righteous enough to go to the Heavenly Father of His own merit.  We must go through Him.  Verse eleven, adds, Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged."  It may seem that sinful people control the world at times, but Jesus said the Holy Spirit had already judged them, from Satan on down.  There is no reason for followers of Christ to live life as if we are defeated.  The Holy Spirit indwells us, and there is no greater power.

John 16:4

John 16:4 says, But these things have I told you, that when the time shall come, ye will remember that I told you of them.  And these things I said not unto you at the beginning, because I was with you.  Jesus wanted His disciples to be prepared for what was to happen, not just to Him, but to those who followed Him.  We today have the history of the persecution of the church to look back on and realize the truth of Jesus's words.  Jesus had not told them before because He was the One they hated, but soon He would be gone, and the hatred would be directed toward His disciples.  This was not just true of those disciples in Jesus's day, but of all since.  Those who are His followers will always be at odds with the world.  We may want to look, dress and talk like the rest of the world, but we are called to be a peculiar people.  I know we probably don't like the word peculiar, but it really just means different. We are not to conform to the world, but we are to transform the world into what God wants it to be.  Verse five adds, But now I go my way to him that sent me; and none of you asketh me, Whether goest thou?  Jesus had told them He was going away, but none of the disciples asked with any courage where He was going.  This was the time for them to seek the comfort that Jesus could offer, but they did not ask for it.  We may often be left without comfort in our relationship with Christ, not because He doesn't have the answer, but because we do not seek it.  Though the religious leaders were now starting to actively pursue Jesus to kill Him, so far the disciples had suffered very little.  Jesus was telling them things were about to go bad.  When we are going through life with few problems, following Christ may be easy.  We need to be warned that things will not always go well and be prepared to follow even closer to God when they don't.  Verse six continues, But because I have said these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart.  They should not have been sorrowful, because Jesus was going to do what He came to do.  We should not be sorrowful because trouble may come to us as His followers, but we should rejoice that He has prepared us for it and will be with us through it.  We are His, and nothing can separate us from Him, except our own lack of faith.  That does not mean that we no longer are His, but that lack of faith can leave us sorrowful in this world.

John 16:1

John 16:1 says, These things have I spoken unto you that ye should not offended.  When the world ridiculed and persecuted the disciples, Jesus had warned them in advance that this would happen so they could be prepared.  Since what the disciples expected of Jesus and what was about to occur were so different, there was a possibility they would be offended about having followed Him.  The same is true today.  When God doesn't do what people expect, they become offended by Him.  One reason people of the world reject salvation is because they have to admit their own unworthiness to accept it.  Again, we must admit our need for forgiveness and realize that this is only possible through the sacrifice of Christ.  Jesus was speaking to His disciples, and sometimes they were offended at His death, prior to His resurrection. We as His followers today have to be careful that we are not offended by the Gospel.  When we see sinful, unrepentant people prosper, are we secretly filled with envy of them or resentment toward God?  Jesus told His disciple, and that applies to us today, what to expect and not to be offended when it did.  Verse two adds, They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think he doeth God service.  We know many early Christians were put to death for their faith in Jesus.  We may not see much of that where we live, but Christians are still being put to death today in the name of a god, which the people doing it see as the God of the Old Testament.  We need to be prepared to be faithful until death.  Verse three continues, And these things they will do unto you, because they have not known the Father or Me.  There may be those who claim to be killing Christians because they are serving God, but Jesus said they didn't know Him or the Father.  We cannot come to the Father except through the blood of the Son.  There certainly are many people in the world today who are killing Christians in the name of a god, but it is not the true God.  We simply must be prepared to stand firm in our convictions in the love of God.  He will be with us in this world, and more importantly, if we are taken from this world, for the everlasting life to come.

John 15:25

John 15:25 says, This cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated Me without a cause.  What was to come to pass that Jesus spoke of was His betrayal and His death. This included His mock trial, because as He said, they had no cause to hate Him.  He was again preparing the disciples for what was to come.  He again made reference to a scripture, Psalms 35:19.  There, David made the statement not only about himself, but about the Messiah to come.  We need not be surprised that Jesus would know the Scripture, but that He would also know its complete interpretation.  Though Jesus was not marking off a checklist of what must happen to Him on earth, He was nonetheless quite familiar with what was to happen.  As we await the return of Jesus, we do not need to attempt to check off things that have transpired that say His return is immanent. There is only one thing that I understand must happen before the return of Christ, and that is that the Gospel must be preached to all nations.  Since we are commissioned by Christ to witness to the whole world, this should be our focus.  If we truly feel the return of Christ is so close, we need to be busy about witnessing, because we are responsible to reach out even to those who hate us with the Gospel of Christ.  Verse twenty-six adds, But when the Comforter is come, Whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which preceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of Me.  The first disciples looked ahead to the coming of the Holy Spirit, but we today have Him with us from the moment we accept Christ as our Savior.  We are told that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth.  When we are confronted with a question of right or wrong, we need to ask the Holy Spirit, Who indwells us, what the truth is.  At times, we may attempt to make facts conform to what we want the truth to be, but the Holy Spirit will reveal the truth to us.  Verse twenty-seven continues, And ye shall bear witness, because ye have been with Me from the beginning.  Though Jesus was speaking to His disciples that day, as His disciples today, we have the same task.  We were not with Jesus during His earthly ministry, but He is with us through the Holy Spirit once we accept Him as our Savior.  We have the same task presented to us, and that is to bear witness to Jesus.  We are not called to condemn a lost and dying world, but instead to bear witness to Jesus.

John 15:21

John 15:21 says. But all these things will they do unto you for My name's sake, because they know not Him that sent Me.  The disciples were going to be persecuted for the sake of Christ.  This was going to happen because those of the world did not know God.  When we as His followers are persecuted today, it is for the sake of Christ, that His message may be presented to the world, and that He might be glorified.  We must realize that we will always be at war with the world, not because we are trying to destroy them, but because they are trying to destroy our witness for Christ.  Those who do not know God will always try to destroy His message.  We really do not face the persecution that many Christians in other parts of the world do, but we should not be surprised when it happens.  Verse twenty-two adds, If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not sin: but now they have no cloak for their sin.  That does not mean without Christ coming into the world that people were never guilty of sin, but that now He had come to fulfill the Law, so their disbelief in Him would leave them with no excuse.  There is no way to hide our sins from the light of Christ.  Verse twenty-three continues, Jesus said, He that hateth Me hateth My Father also.  We cannot claim to believe in God if we reject Jesus.  Again, Jesus said that there was no other way to salvation but by Him.  We can never claim as followers of Christ that there may be other ways to salvation.  Believing in any god is not enough.  When we proclaim this truth, the world hates us, because it hated Jesus.  Jesus was killed in the name of religion, so we shouldn't find it strange that Christians are killed today in the name of religion. We are no greater than our Lord.  If we are totally accepted or ignored by the world, something is wrong.  We have to also remember that even though the world hated Jesus, He loved them, and so must we.  Verse twenty-four concludes, If I had not done among them the works that none other man did, they had not sin: but now they hath both seen and hated both Me and My Father.  We cannot separate Jesus and the Father.  When we reject Jesus, we reject God.  Now that Jesus has paid the penalty for sin, if we reject Him, we are left accountable for our sins.  There is no other way to restoration with God than through Jesus.

John 15:20

John 15:20 says, Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his Lord.  If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept My saying, they will keep yours also.  Jesus reminded the disciples that the servant is not greater than the master. Though Jesus was speaking to those disciples with Him that day, the truth of what He said applies to all His followers for all time.  We know that Jesus was persecuted to the point of being crucified, and we are promised that we will be persecuted also.  Notice Jesus did not say they might, but they will persecute us.  I know we read of the persecution of the early church and seem to think that ended after that time, but that was not what Jesus was saying.  He was talking to His followers for all time until His return.  When we say that God doesn't want us unhappy and would never ask anything of us that would make us unhappy, remember our Lord went to the cross.  We are no greater than He is. Jesus also told His disciples that if people kept His sayings, they would keep the sayings of the disciples as well.  This does not mean that the disciples, then or now, are going to come up with some new gospel.  They, and we, are simply to be the ones who continue to spread the Gospel of Christ.  When we do this under the power of the Holy Spirit, the people of the world will listen.  That has always been the divider.  People will either persecute us for being His followers, or they will believe our testimony to Christ.  No where do we find a promise of prosperity in this world.  The blessing that God pours out on us is that we are content in Him, even if the world persecutes us.  If we are materially blessed, we need to realize that even if we give a tithe to the church, the rest still belongs to God.  We belong to Christ all the time, not just on Sunday and Wednesday night, and all that we are blessed with is to be used for His glory.  We are only promised persecution from the world, so we should not be surprised when it happens.  Still, we need to remember what else Jesus had just said, and that is that we are to reach out in love and not hatred.  Jesus is our example, and He reached out in love even from the cross.