Kingdom Blog

The Gospel of John dedicates five chapters to the upper room, and the others gospels maybe one or two. The download Christ gave them during that last night with Him could have only really being absorbed and understood by the Holy Spirit – particularly as their heads would have been still spinning from the triumphant entrance of Christ into Jerusalem on a donkey, His confrontations and teachings in the Temple, healings, and then there’s the end times insights only a day or so beforehand while on the Mount of Olives, the anointing in Bethany, and the recent resurrection of Lazarus. I think it is perhaps truly hard to comprehend what it would have been like.

This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.

John 15:12-13

And knowing this, in the end Christ’s last message to them is basically to love, the type of intimate, and sacrificial love He so beautifully revealed to them.

Particularly in John 13 – 17 we read of Jesus Christ’s parting actions, words, and prayers with His disciples before His imminent departure. In general they relate to loving God, and each other, to remember His lead, our destiny with Him, and that by His Spirit we are not alone.

There was certainly a lot of love in the house that tonight when He shared the last supper with them. But the challenge today is will we continue in it, because it requires great sacrifice. And this sacrifice is only possible through our belief in Him, and the in dwelling of God is us by His Spirit.

Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going to God, rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself. After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded.

John 13:3-5

Read John 13:1-16, 31-35.

As we read in John 13, Jesus washes our feet, being the servant that makes it possible to enter to His home clean in His sight. He showed us this example of humble service against the back drop of His believers claiming greatness (again). Like so often today, they sought to assume places and positions of power!

Jesus shared the last supper to remind us of Him, and the sacrifice He made, and a hint of that which we would need to make if we are like Him.

Later Jesus prayers we receive the Holy Spirit, and reveals Him to be God with us. Knowing our weaknesses, and also the sadness of His leaving us, He doubles down on the gift of the Holy Spirit, that He indeed dwell both with us, and in us, and this is key to revealing Him to others.

“If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever— the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.”

John 14:15-18

Jesus also reveals He is the Father, and He is the way to the Father. Jesus prevails on us to understand His oneship with the Father, that He come from Him, and is going back to Him, and in Him we have this place of eternal life. He sets the benchmark for the least of us, the body of Christ, should be doing…the same work He did, and beyond!

“Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know.” Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”

John 14:1-6

Jesus prays for us – to be with Him, and to reveal Him. For our eternal life, our walk with God, and unity together in Him. Knowing the frailty of our nature, He still calls us up into this place with Him.

“I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.”

John 17:20-21

Jesus knowing the disciples would despair at His death on the cross, knowing their weakness of faith, and they still could not comprehend His resurrection, gave them four powerful way to deal with the dark hour of His apparent destruction.

He has also given us these strategies for when we feel God is absent or distant, and we are travelling through he valley of the shadow of death. God knows that the freshness of an encounter with God can soon dissipate in our mind when trouble comes, and even though we apparently know we have eternity with Him coming, we can get very short term focussed. Knowing this, these simple tools seem to be perhaps a useful approach for us as well.

• Remember – Christ Jesus, the Way to heaven made clear, that by His Spirit we are not alone, our eternal destiny is in a heavenly mansion with God, and, we are forgiven and made right with God. He has given us the very practical memorial, the physical act of sharing Communion, to assist with this remembering. Knowing as we do it believing, we share this supper as if present with Him.

• Love – Abide in Him, stay connected to Him through His word, the fruit of our lives, and devotion; Love and serve (sacrificially) each other – in this we minister to Him, and connect deeply to who He is. We are called to connect with each other through love.

• Pray – to God, for each other, and those to come into God’s house, and to know Jesus intercedes for you (and welcomes us to the same place of intercession)

• Know the Holy Spirit – As we believe in Jesus He gives us His presence by the Holy Spirit. He calls us to get to know Him, for through His presence in our lives He reveals Jesus amongst us, it is as if He never left us. This is a spiritual act, we need to train our spirit man and senses to know Him, and He will not fail to do show Himself to us in very real ways as we seek Him. Remember, He is the very essence of God. And this is the blessing of knowing the Holy Spirit, we receive the peace of God, for the Spirit of the Prince of Peace is found in Him.

“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”

John 14:26-27

There are periods where we may not see God in our lives, or at times feel very distant from Him, but in fact He is with us, deep within, and as we learn to abide in this presence, know we are not alone, and learn to rest on the eternal truths of that..not on what we believe He does for us. It is our eternal life in Him that only truly matters, not what this world has for us.

In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”

1 Corinthians 11:25

You will see or encounter Jesus again, do not despair, you will also awaken in His likeness. When we feel like God has forgotten us, or indeed the world, and those encounter with Jesus simply a distant memory, bring to mind again those lessons from the Last Supper: Remember, Love, Pray, and Know.