Sent to my brothers – January 2010

John 15:22-25:

“If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. Now, however, they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates me hates my Father as well. If I had not done among them what no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. But now they have seen these miracles, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.’”

John chapters 14-15 are perhaps some of the most moving, emotional, and intimate chapters in scripture. Jesus is preparing for death and giving his most important words to the twelve. Most of the “Father’s love” stuff that impacts so many of us today comes from these chapters.

But it’s always interesting to find the nuances that are tucked inside these passages. This part is easy to skip over but it demonstrates the awesome responsibility that comes with knowledge and revelation.

Every time we witness the work of God – especially when there is no question that it is real – we have crossed into a different realm. There is no going back. We can no longer say that God has not spoken, we can no longer feign ignorance.

When we seek God and pray for miracles and revelation, we must also be sober in knowing that we are responsible for everything we have seen and known.

Miracles have been common in some parts of the church – but NOT common at all in many other parts of the church. I have always wondered if this might be a form of mercy. Because as Jesus says in this verse: “If I had not done among them what no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. But now they have seen these miracles, and yet they have hated both me and my Father.”

When I was a teenager I used to wonder what Hebrews 6:4-6 meant:

“It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.”

I think I have a much clearer idea today. I have seen people cross the point of no-return in their belief. They’ve taken all they know and run it through a blender, rejecting God and his revelation and turning it into nonsense. They become bitter and angry. Warning: They can reach a place where there is no going back.

In our faith community – which is a very special place – we now are on the threshold of some POWERFUL revelations of God. With those blessings will come great responsibility. Hebrews 3:7-11:

So, as the Holy Spirit says:
“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion,
during the time of testing in the desert,
where your fathers tested and tried me
and for forty years saw what I did.
That is why I was angry with that generation,
and I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray,
and they have not known my ways.’
So I declared on oath in my anger,
‘They shall never enter my rest.’ “