He Thought...

He Thought...

by David Brenneman 

In reading the account in John 13 of the night Jesus was betrayed...there's several things that I caught. 

One was that even in this...Satan's actions were by command of Jesus only. Satan could not do anything apart from the will of God in Christ Jesus. Until Jesus followed through and handed Judas the bread and the commandment from Him was spoken...Satan had to wait. 

Another was that in his own eyes Peter really thought that he was laying down his life for Jesus. He just did not know how much farther he would need to go to truly do that. 

We too can be of the kind that don't wait for all to be said before acting. We too can be of the kind that don't wait for all to be understood before leaping into situations that are not ours to delve into.

We too can think we're doing our level best to serve or obey God when we haven't asked just what it really is that He wants of us. 

We think...yet don't. We understand...yet don't.

We are on a journey of understanding Jesus by way of the teaching by the Spirit of God. 

The worst is we often put a prideful hand up and declare we got this. 

He thought...She thought...We thought.

Consider it well that it wasn't until after the completion of the events of the Gospel accounts...after the Holy Spirit had come to the Disciples...much of everything they lived with Jesus wasn't really understood. 

They thought they understood.

Read through the accounts and look for all the places where you read that it was afterwards they understood these things. 

These are really a further, four book example, of what Paul said later. The natural man cannot understand the things of God because they are spiritually discerned.  

Paul, as Saul, I contend was with Jesus as a Pharisee throughout the Gospels. An outsider of the 12 but nonetheless being taught even if he wasn't aware as of yet. 

After the revelations at His coming to Jesus moment on the road to Damascus he now understood everything he didn't before. Because now having come to Christ Jesus himself for salvation he understood. 

We cannot understand the things of God apart from the Holy Spirit. No one can know what they are missing without coming to Christ to be saved. As the book of John opens with...they are in darkness and loved the darkness rather than the Light. 

We don't know the depths of the work of God in our lives. We only see what we are granted understanding for. Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness is an ongoing process nothing we will arrive at in this world. 

Trust in the Lord with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight. This is for this world and our lives in it. When we arrive in Heaven we end our Earthly part of learning and enter into the Heavenly. 

We think we have had enough. We often throw in the towel. Quite often Jesus throws the towel back and tells us to wipe off our face and keep going. We are in training. We are going through times of learning in life to become fully devoted followers of Christ. We are often our own worst enemy in stopping what Jesus is just getting going at teaching us something about Him and ourselves.

We think...an fall flat.  

Do you pray for His guidance each day? If not, why not? Foolish enough to think it's an easy day? That you got it? Foolish is the promise of failure for those who try to live any part of their lives without Jesus.  

Do you think that you're ok in your walk with Jesus or are you striving for more? A foolish person thinks they have enough of Jesus in their lives. 

He thought he understood what laying down his life for Jesus meant. 

He was wrong. He was shown how great a gap there was between his truth and reality. It broke him until Jesus restored him. Yet it could have been a whole lot worse! How? Read what Jesus said after He told Peter he would deny Him 3 times. Jesus knew in advance that conversation would happen and told Peter He prayed for him.  

Jesus prays for us too.  

We are feeble in our clouded understanding of all things Spiritual until the Spirit teaches us.  

We need to have reminders. In Deuteronomy Moses had the people write down reminders and put them in as many places as possible. 

Don't start your day with a layer of arrogance. Stop, pray, ask for help in this day. Stop, pray, ask for understanding in what you are doing and facing.  

All NASB 1995 and NASB Scripture Excerpts used by permission. (C) Lockman Foundation.