If you love me, obey my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you. (John 14:15-17)I was reading about someone who was irritated at Tim Tebow, the Denver Broncos quarterback who bows and prays openly on the field. He is not reluctant at all to display his Christianity.
The person whining was complaining that by doing this, he cheapened his religion. The person went on to say that any of the Republican candidates who run on a God agenda cheapen and pervert their religions by mentioning them and displaying their faith.
The writer’s idea of Christianity? "Something sort of somber and serious and deep." In other words, nothing that touches your life in any way. And certainly nothing that you display.
If these kinds of people go to church, they recite the liturgy, sleep through the sermon and feel at the end that they have done God a favor by coming. There is no connection, no meaning to what they do.
I had an email discussion with a man who only used the King James Version of the Bible. He had no use for modern translations. I asked him why. As the discussion went through maybe three or four responses from each of us, it came out that he was, after all, Church of England and they dealt far more comfortably with tradition. KJV was traditional, therefore KJV was preferred.
I ended by saying that if all you wanted was nostalgia, that was fine. But if you wanted something greater – like a touch from God through his word – you needed something that could be understood.
That’s the problem with the world. it cannot understand the things of God. Jesus said, in this passage, that he would send someone to be with us that would be totally incomprehensible to the world. they cannot understand him because they are on different wavelengths.
Jesus said, obey my commandments. What commandments? The ones where he said to love. He is not talking about the 67,000 things that people often put as commandments of Jesus. He is talking about love.
I read a booklet once that had all the commands of Jesus in a convenient little booklet. That was you could check them off as you did them, I suppose. The problem was, Jesus didn’t give commandments like that. We are not saved by what we do anyway. We are saved by who we are – children of God. And as children of God, we will love God and love each other.
Those are the commandments Jesus spoke of. Do that and the Spirit will come.
But know this: when he comes, the world will not appreciate it, and will get mad at you. After all, they got mad enough at Jesus that they killed him.
If they didn’t like him, it will be no surprise they do not like you.
And they hate you when you start being a Christian in public.
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