Feel All Alone?

John 16:32 “Behold, the hour comes, yea, is NOW COME, that you shall be scattered, everyman TO HIS OWN, and shall leave me ALONE; “And yet, I am NOT ALONE, because the Father is with me.”

 

Jesus was not on a pity trip saying this.  You hear it in what follows in this same chapter

 

“These things I have spoken unto you, that you might have peace.  In the world you shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer; I HAVE OVERCOME THE WORLD.”  (In other words, “It will O.K; I am prepared for this moment, I don’t feel alone.)

 

What’s the answer to this puzzle?  “Stay out of the world, join Him in His “OVERCOMING” position.  Let others seek “their own.”  The disciples did just that.  Was Jesus in despair knowing they would do this?  He clearly Knew this would happen.  We all have been warned that this would happen, and appear to be shocked when it does.  I have personally seen and experienced, along with all of you, “ALL” my family and friends going to THEIR OWN WAY, leaving me feeling all alone.  This had to happen, for a deeper relationship to occur in my relationship with our true Father, at some point we will be tested as to our claim of having such a relationship.  This PEACE that Jesus mentioned comes only after we come to feel deserted by all.  This peace will be found to PASS all the misunderstandings and poor view we have of the meaning behind this total experience, one temporal in nature.  We find ourselves still expecting to get our needs met by those who never could have met our deepest needs, that only God could.  This world has castrated  the gelding and have bid him to be fruitful.  What this means is that we are looking to a world, who are without God, and any understanding of unconditional love, to meet our needs for such depth of love.  We are seeking “fondness”, we are seeking to be liked and understood, by a world that hasn’t the capacity to do this.  Only another human being, like yourself, who has some idea of the possibility of such love, would be able to self sacrifice for the one that they loved, with the very love they have received from their Father, the same Father you have claimed.

 

Did you notice, all His disciple deserted Him; did He ever give up on believing that up the road, after His death, (letting them each go their own way) …believing that a resurrection moment would come in the lives of each one of them, and would give them all the forgiveness, mercy and grace, for leaving Him alone, as alone as you might feel today, having close loved ones ignoring you, rejecting what you know to be the truth.  Once again we were warned.  What did we expect?  Was Jesus kidding when He said, “If they rejected me, they will also reject you….”The world loves its own”,  “mother against daughter, son against father,…”  We see this in the lives of many, yet think we will do better at this thing of sharing the Gospel, and gain people’s love and understanding.  If so, you have been sharing it all in the need for love, not because you have His kind of love that could be expressed as we have just read in John’s Gospel.  It’s called, “helping out of the need to be helped.”  The world would say, “You scratch my back, I scratch yours.”  What happens when you scratch someone back and they don’t return the favor?  Fondness goes out the window at that moment.  In our natural make up its just the way that it is, cut off from God.  What were we expecting, we have been warned.

 

Ending this, let me say this, what Jesus had said to His disciples, “All of you will desert me, you will all at some point in time, leave me and follow the teaching of others.  It will be O.K,…I have been told this will happen, that it must happen, for my relationship to our Father to increase.  It is expedient that I go away, that you realize the TRUE TEACHER isn’t any individual man or self-claimed teacher.  Your true teacher, as Jesus Himself had intended, was the Holy Spirit…it is He that will lead you all to this TRUTH, discovering…”Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end.”   God Bless all of you…Paul