The coming of the messianic age is a glorious thing. Messiah is described as a righteous branch,
and “the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and
understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the
fear of the Lord.” Under His reign the
separations created by the Fall will be healed.
The brotherhood of man will be re-established as well as the relationships
with the rest of creation, enmity will be at an end. That same spirit which rests upon the
righteous branch has been given to us, the Spirit of wisdom, understanding,
counsel, might, knowledge and the fear of the Lord. What changes everything about the world? “They shall not hurt or destroy in all my
holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the
waters cover the sea.” We need always to
pray for the outpouring of the Spirit in our lives and on the earth.
Do you see the logical statements Jesus made in this
passage? “Whoever has my commandments
and keeps them, he it is who loves me…If anyone loves me, he will keep my word…” Loving Jesus and keeping His
commandments/word are inextricably tied to one another and the result of these
is that the Father loves, manifests and makes His home with the one who does
these things. In case someone missed the
connection, Jesus stated the negative condition implied by the positives, “Whoever
does not love me does not keep my words.”
Are we keeping His words? The first
thing necessary to keep His words is to know them, to meditate on them,
understand them, and apply them. We do
this, however, not because we are under compulsion but because we love the one
whose words they are because, as John wrote in his first epistle, He first
loved us. The true blessing of the Holy
Spirit is as our teacher, leading us into all truth, giving us the wisdom to
understand the words and how to apply them in our lives in all situations.
Paul says that in Corinth his message wasn’t one of
plausible worldly wisdom but in Spirit and in power. The message of the virgin birth, the
incarnation itself, God becoming man and dwelling among us, dying on a cross,
rising to life again three days later, the ascension and the belief that Jesus
will come again and permanently establish God’s kingdom, don’t fit within
anyone’s plausibility structure. Paul knew
that the message of the cross was foolishness to these people but he preached
in believing in the power of the Holy Spirit to convict them of the truth of
his proclamation. Apart from the Spirit
there is no hope for anyone other than someone who is out of their right mind
to believe such a message. It makes no
sense for God to come into the world and suffer and die as Jesus did at the
hands of His creation. Through the power
of the Holy Spirit, God still breaks
into this world today and does things that defy explanation.
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