August 27, 2020 -- John 7:17 -- Breathing in His will

If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority.

John 7:17 English Standard Version

The Contemporary Christian Music group (wait, does anyone actually use the expression CCM anymore?!) “All Sons and Daughters” sings “Its Your breath in our lungs so we pour out our praise”. (The song is “Great Are You Lord"). To argue against God is to borrow breath, breathing in deeply His gift of oxygen into the lungs He has given you which are located in the body which He has wonderfully knit together in your mother’s womb in order to tell Him Who Is All-Knowing, All-Powerful, that you know better than He does. Our very DNA—A, T, C, G—the four letters which represent the chemical building blocks of our DNA—declares the language, the information He spoke in you so that you are unique, created for His purposes and His glory.

What Jesus declared to His listeners then and to us today is simple and profound and easy to miss. He is drawing from centuries of prayers represented in the Psalms—the Bible’s prayer book. Consider this: “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked…but his delight is in the law of the LORD” Psalm 1:1,2. The Mighty One of heaven and earth has decreed blessedness for those who follow Him, seeking to know Him.

“So the LORD has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in His sight” (Psalm 18:24). As the believer determines to honour God in His thoughts and actions, his words and way of living, so the LORD brings His great blessing and reward on that man, that woman, that child. So awesome to contemplate

“To You, O LORD, I lift up my soul. O my God, in You I trust; let me knot be put to shame; let not my enemies exult (triumph) over me. Indeed, none who wait for your shall be put to shame;” Psalm 25:1-2. The whole of this Psalm shows how one writer wrestled against great odds and circumstances to find the goodness of the LORD and God showed up in power and glory.

Straight up, willingness on our part to do God’s will is sufficient so that Jesus Christ will be revealed as true and as the Messenger sent from our Father in heaven. Willingness on our part to read the Bible and hear what the Spirit of God teaches will confirm Jesus Christ to be exactly Who He claimed to be: the One sent by the Father to show us the Father’s love and rescue us from our sins and bring us up from our deadness in sin into the life and light found in the authority and blessedness of Jesus.

Send out Your Spirit Jesus, so that our hearts and minds will be teachable, so that our wills may be conquered and subdued enough to be willing to do the Father’s will. Let the prayer book of the Bible, the Psalms, become so precious to us that we will grow in our ability to speak to and listen to You. Amen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jCnAAeEJSQ