Entrusting Yourself to Jesus

There’s something interesting going on in a passage in John’s gospel. 

Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man. John 2:23–25 

 

John writes that ‘many believed in his [Jesus’] name’. Then, he also writes, ‘Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them’. What’s interesting is that the word translated ‘believed’ is the same word that is translated ‘entrust’. The very same word. And that helps us to understand something that is actually very important. 

Into the presence of God

This is a thought that came to me after I had lunch with a friend. He was comparing two kinds of preachers. He was not critical of the first type. He made quite clear that he appreciates how they deal with important questions and provide good, biblical answers. But the second group draws one into the presence of God. There is a different feeling. There is a sense of God. And this is an aspect that is missing too much these days. A crying need in the church today is a greater sense of God. And that is not code for a greater sense of distance because of His holiness. While there needs to be a fear of God, there also needs to be a growing sense of the grace that He has for all of His children. So, as important as the mind is, as important as it is to fill the understanding, there is also the need to touch the affections.

Prayer: Communion with God

Who are we? Creatures created for communion with God The gospel is about the restoration of our true creatureliness. Thus the gospel is about restoring communion with God as his creatures. 

We have also seen that the story of the Gospel is the restoration of true prayer; it is the story of the restoration of real relationship between man and God. Down through the ages God has called out to man, and his last and ultimate word and call to human beings has been in the person of his only Son. Jesus Christ is God's ultimate word to man. So the very essence of real prayer is simply answering God in the call that comes to us in Jesus Christ. Prayer is responding to Jesus. We can pray because God is a speaking God, because we have been created to respond to him, because we have been redeemed that we might again respond to him.  

Why We Pray by William Philip 

In the minds of so many Christians, prayer is simply asking God for things, prefaced by words of praise that we're supposed to utter and also including thanksgiving since that's simply being polite. How wrong! Prayer is intended to be communion with God, our Father. We pursue a real relationship with Him because we can. It's what the Gospel is about.

What Is a 'Quiet Time' For?

I grew up in an evangelical church. The folk there believed the Bible. They had worship, Sunday school and a youth group as regular events along with the occasional special something. I suppose that it had a good reputation as an evangelical church. But no one ever told me that it would be a good idea if I regularly read my Bible. That didn’t happen until I went off to college. I was involved in a Christian campus ministry. That’s where someone finally told me that reading my Bible was a good habit. So, that’s what I did. Each morning I had what our group called a ‘quiet time’. And doing that was really good. But I had this persistent question which, I suppose, reflected an aspect of my personality which is still with me. ‘Why am I doing this? What’s the goal? What am I trying to accomplish?’ I read little booklets on the topic of the ‘quiet time’. I read articles about it. I looked for an answer to my question. But I never found an answer. And that bothered me. I wanted to have an answer for that so that I could work at this ‘quiet time’ thing in the right way and, as a result, achieve the goal, whatever it might be. But I found myself quite frustrated. I wasn’t finding an answer. 

For any of you who might find yourself in a similar situation, I’d like to offer what I hope will be a helpful answer. To do that we’ll need to ask a different question. What’s the goal of the Gospel? There are many good answers to this question, depending on the particulars that you are looking at. Here’s one of them: to have our communion with God restored. Sin destroys communion with God. This is shown quite graphically with the first sin. Adam and Eve enjoyed God’s special presence in the Garden. But that was lost because they sinned. Communion with God was destroyed. Jesus has come to restore that communion. And His work of restoration will be completed after our resurrection when we see God face to face. His work will be completed then, but He is working at it now. 

And that gets us to this ‘quiet time’ or whatever you want to call it. (I call it ‘morning prayer’.) It’s our time to enjoy a taste of communion with God. It won’t be as good as it will be later. But it can get to be very good. That means that this time isn’t about reading your Bible so you can learn stuff from some passage of Scripture, aka ‘education’. And it isn’t about working through the next few names and items on your prayer list. It’s about enjoying a bit of communion with God. To be sure, reading and thinking about Scripture just might be a part of this, as long as it is about communion and not mere knowledge. And obviously, there will be prayer. But it will be a kind of prayer that is about being and feeling close to God. 

Now, it’s true that with an ‘educational’ quiet time you can tell yourself that you learned something new from your Bible reading. And you can check off some items on your prayer list. As a result, you can tell yourself that you made some progress and feel good about the time you spent. But progress toward what? Remember, a key goal of the Gospel is for you to enjoy God. That will take something more than Bible education and a prayer list with lots of check marks. It will take spending time communing with God.

Data Dumps

Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! 

Psalm 34:8 

So many sermons these days are just data dumps. “Let me give you more information.” What is needed is not just more information. Satan knows more about God than any of us. But what good does it do him? What is needed is the experience of God which leads to heart-felt worship and a life of devotion. Preaching does need to set out some information from a text of Scripture, some truth about Jesus and His gospel. But then it needs to drive home that information to the consciences of the listeners so that that they will flee sin and unbelief, and instead pursue God in Christ by faith. Therein lies real life, the life of eternity that the gospel promises but so many Christians do not enjoy to the extent that they could. And what an effect on the world would such lives make for the sake of the Kingdom.

Real Satisfaction

The LORD is my portion. Psalm 119:57

 

God is a satisfying portion. This world may fill a man, but can never satisfy him. Most have too much, but no one has enough. They are like ships that carry a burden heavy enough to sink it, but with room to hold more. The world cannot satisfy the senses, much less the soul. Where can true contentment be found? The earth says, ‘It is not in me'; no, heaven itself is not enough if God is not in it. If you long for the things of the world, you will find them nothing when you receive them. The sun and moon seem bigger at the first rising. If you believe that rest grows in the furrows of the field, and happiness is found in the gold mine, and that earthly treasures can produce happiness, listen to the preacher: 'Vanity of vanities! All is vanity' (Eccles. 1:2). He spoke by personal experience; the utmost of earthly pleasures fall short of satisfying. Men in great poverty think that if they could rise to a mountain of riches and delights they could reach true happiness, but Solomon found the hill far from satisfying. The world has been weighed in the balance and found wanting. David tells us that if the Lord is your portion, this fountain runs freely to full contentment. This portion is the best possible. It affords full contentment and happiness; 'I have enough, and crave no more.' If a man were crowned king of the world to enjoy the treasures, honours, and pleasures that all its kingdoms can yield; if he had the society of angels and glorified saints as friends, and could enjoy all this for the duration of the world, yet without God, he would be unsatisfied. These like the dew might wet the branches and please the flesh, but would leave the roots dry. However, once let God possess his heart, and then, and not before, his infinite desires are satisfied in the bosom of his Maker. God fully satisfies. 

 GEORGE SWINNOCK