Week 41 John
John sixteen starts with the Lord telling his disciples: I have told you these things so that you won’t fall away. Which is pretty interesting. The Lord is telling me stuff, and here he’s also telling me why he’s telling me.
Q: Why is he telling me? A: So that I won’t fall away.
But what exactly is he telling me? What are the These Things he’s talking about?
I glance back at the last chapter. I already read it, but I see now that I didn’t pick up on what the point was.
John fifteen says three big things.
For one thing the Lord said that his Spirit would be around to help me.
Reading back a bit farther the Lord said that if I was loyal to him it would end me up in conflict with the world – a kind of heads-up.
And back near the beginning of the chapter the Lord talked about being like a branch of a tree that will only stay alive as long as it’s attached to the tree.
John fifteen also says some small things.
Do they all relate to not falling away?
I dunno. I doubt it. But there’s something in there that I need to latch onto. A Fall-away Preventer.
What all is involved is a bigger exercise that’ll take more time.
For now I’m glad to know that the Lord doesn’t want me to fall away.
Note: quote from John 16:1 (NLT)