Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For we have no continuing city here, but we seek one to come.
Select a thought to read by choosing a collection, the month, and then the day:
“Jesus said to them, ‘If God was your Father, you would love me, for I descended from God and am here, for I have not come of myself, but He sent me.’ ”
John 8:42
“He who hates me hates my Father also.”
John 15:23
It is certainly true that anyone who truly is of God loves Jesus. But why is that true? Because Jesus was one third of a divine person who reveals Himself in three different ways, Father, Son, and holy Ghost? I think not. The reason that one could only love Jesus if he truly belonged to God was that “God was in Christ” (2Cor. 5:19). Or, as Jesus said it, “The Father is in me”, and “It is the Father in me who is doing the works” (Jn. 14:10).
Jesus did only what the Father desired him to do, and he said only what the Father instructed him to say (Jn. 8:28; 12:49-50). He reflected perfectly the will and the wisdom of God. That is why Jesus said to his disciples, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father” (Jn. 14:7-10). If the Father had walked on the earth Himself, He would have done and said everything that Jesus did and said. He was, in fact, the one leading Jesus to do it all.
I was with my earthly father one evening when he asked this question to a group of “apostolic” worshipers deep in the hills of Kentucky: “Has anybody seen God in you lately?” If anyone has heard God’s truth from you and seen God’s character in you, then they have also “seen God in you”, just as men saw God in Jesus, or in Paul, or in John, or in Peter, or in anyone else who is inspired by the holy Ghost to say or do anything according to the will of God. “For it is God working within you”, wrote Paul to believers of his day, “both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Phip. 2:13).
Whenever anyone does a deed that is righteous, it is God doing it through that person. There is no other source of righteousness anywhere but God. If you are walking in the Spirit, then you are letting God be seen: His nature, His goodness, His power, His wisdom. And if anyone truly belongs to God, then that person will love you because they love the God that can be seen in you.
There is no other Lord but Jesus. But Jesus suffered and died so that he would not be the only one through whom God could be seen. Just let the Spirit live in you, and God will choose your friends. Every person who truly belongs to God will love you, just as those who truly belonged to God loved Jesus – and for the same reason.