Sons Are Sent
(John 20:21)
As disciples grow in spiritual maturity, their responsibility increases. They will be sent with greater authority and works of power will follow after them. I must admit, something here I do not yet understand. How can some do miracles in His name and yet He later denies them? He says that He never knew them. I do not believe this is said simply as a sort of warning. Note that their emphasis is on what they did. “Look at us,” they say to the One who is worthy of all glory. It appears they never saw Him for who He truly is.
As we mature we understand that we, like Jesus, learn obedience by the things, circumstances and experiences that we allow, and bear with. They can be painful, more than unpleasant. These are the means of our growing. Jesus had Himself sent out the disciples as 12, and another time He sent 70. He told the disciples that He was bringing us to the Father. Even more, His prayer in John 17 is that we would be one with the Father and one with one another. Remember, Jesus included all who believe on Him in that prayer. How awesome! How wonderful! The time was coming for the disciples when they would ask Him no more but ask the Father, and He, our Father, would work on their behalf. Of course, we are not leaving Jesus out of this. He is at the right hand of our Father. Jesus said that WE (Himself, and the Father) would come to the ones, the people and disciples, who wanted Him and THEY would make their abode in them. He and the Father make their home in us by the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. Jesus has become a life giving Spirit.
We have written earlier that we are His sons being brought to glory. Is our goal an earthly ministry full of signs and wonders? Beware! Jesus’ end on this earth was an answer to His cry to be returned to the glory He knew with His Father. For us, the Spirit gives us foretastes of that glory. As Jesus neared the time of His full return to our Father, He spoke to them and breathed on them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” This was before the outpouring, the immersion of those 120, and possession of them, in and by the Holy Spirit. They experienced something more that day in Jerusalem. Many others have known such experiences. I have written before of my own experiences and many others have also known the fillings, and breakthroughs, and increases of authority and power in their lives.
Recently, I spoke with a young woman, a believer with a love for Jesus. We spoke about some historical movements in the church. When I mentioned that which we have called the charismatic movement, she responded matter-of-factly, “That is subject to interpretation.” Now she held the Moravians and Zinzendorf in high regard as many of us do. Yet she seemed unaware of their own Pentecostal experience that truly set them ablaze with a holy passion for the name of Jesus. Without criticism, we yet pray for the Holy Spirit to cause our spirits to rise above our intellects. He will bring that revealing of the One, Christ, and release a fuller flow of life to those around us. We will know that we live in the Father’s presence and experience the growth of our inner man, Christ in us.
As we know more of that glory as we stand in grace before His throne, our corruptions are displaced and we stand in His pure righteousness alone. From that place, He can send us filled with His Spirit, with the mind of Christ and the heart of our Father. Then we will truly do His will as the Spirit directs us. The word becomes flesh in us. We walk as He walked. Perfectly? We do not know what His idea of that is for each of us until we get there. Will you allow Him to refine you as you continue to come to Him? Only He can complete that work in you. He wants to. He loves you with an everlasting, wonderful love. It is worth all the pain and all the tears. He takes that all away. And we hear and know, we experience being sent as His sons. As Jesus said, “Peace to you! As the Father sent me, so I send you.” May we know the continual filling of the Holy Spirit so that we overflow to the praise of the glory of the Father.
