August 17
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THE WORLD CANNOT RECEIVE THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH
16 I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; 17 that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.
18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also. 20 In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. 21 He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” 22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, “Lord, what then has happened that You are going to disclose Yourself to us and not to the world?” 23 Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him. 24 He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s, who sent Me.– John 14:16-24
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These are some of the last words of Jesus during the upper room supper He had with His disciples before he was crucified. He was alleviating the fears of His disciple for He knows that He will soon go and they will feel deserted without Him. He told them that He will ask His Father to give them another Helper when He is not with them anymore. He calls the Helper as the Spirit of truth who can only be granted to those who belong to Him. Unbelievers and the world cannot have it because it only comes when one believes that Jesus is the Son of God and that they are inseparable. God is in Him and He is also in God. He reassures them in verse 18, that they will not be orphans because He will never really leave them. He explains to them in verse 19 that even though His body will be dead physically, He will still be with them in Spirit. It is also in this verse that He explains that His body will soon be resurrected again soon.
In verse 21, he gives them the pre-requisite to loving Him: to follow all His commandments. If they do so, He will live in them and His Father will love them as well. On the other hand, those who don’t keep His commands do not love him. Though He was God, Jesus does not claim God’s word as His. We have the perfect example of someone who knows how to exercise boundaries and respect for His Father who He acknowledges as greater than Him and the source of all things.
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REFLECTION
• Why can’t an unbeliever receive or accept truth?