God’s Love: Making Jesus Christ Lord–Part 1, Our Helper

I learned about my Dad by reading old newspapers about his Navy and Army service in World War II. I also heard stories about him from my Mom and other relatives. But the way I knew him best was by living with him, hearing what he had to say, and seeing his love for me in daily actions—like playing “catch” or praying together.

Getting to Know the Father and His Son

The same is true with God and His Son, Jesus Christ. We can learn a great deal about them from the Bible. But to really know them, we need to develop a daily relationship. The New Testament uses the word “fellowship,” which means to share fully.

I John 1:3:
That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.

II John 1:3:
Grace be with you, mercy, and peace, from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.

It is God’s love that allows us to truly enjoy fellowship with Him. Jesus Christ so loved us that he gave his life for us. When I am a “L-over” with God’s true love, then Jesus Christ will be “Lord-over” my life.

Living God’s Love

Jesus Christ saw people as sheep without a shepherd. He had compassion for others but did not judge them as evil. He realized how the adversary, the Devil, attacks people so that they sin, or “miss the mark.” Jesus Christ stood against those who were genuinely evil and sold out to the adversary. But he saw the best in others. We can have that same “mind of Christ” in our dealings with others.

Expressing God’s Love to others requires that I walk in the spirit and not in the flesh. When I am walking in the spirit I am adhering to God’s way of living which is His righteousness. To walk in the spirit is our great challenge in life.

Christ said that He is the True Vine and we are the branches. Therefore if we do not remain connected to the True Vine then the fruit of the spirit which is rooted in God’s love (agapē) will not be produced in us. To love God and to love others as I love myself is the foundation upon which I must build in order to be well pleasing to the Father.

One thing that helps me to achieve this is to realize that what I do to others, I also do to myself. Ephesians 4:25 says to put away lying because we are members one of another. This is why acting without love (agapē) profits me nothing. When I am unkind towards others I am not expressing God’s love, no matter how much I may know about the Bible. I have become a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.

A self-righteous person is one who sets up their own standard of righteousness and then uses that standard to judge others. This self-righteousness is a false standard and is not rooted in God’s love. Without adhering to this basic Law of Love, I am most definitely a hypocrite. When I am making Jesus my lord, I am living and sharing God’s love.

Calling Us Alongside the Father

You can’t teach relationships, you must know them by experience. I want to know the Father and His Son, not just “about them.” What does it mean to have a “personal relationship with Jesus Christ”? He is our brother, Lord, savior, intercessor, and mediator.

I John 2:1 says he is our advocate (paraklētos) with the Father. This word means one who “calls alongside” another. He opened up a direct connection (paraklētos, calling alongside) with the Father—the new birth by spiritual seed (I Peter 1:23).

Shortly before his death, Jesus Christ explained about the gift of holy spirit that would be available after his death, resurrection, and ascension. The James Moffatt translation of the New Testament records this time and has John 17 directly following John 14. Here Jesus Christ says he himself, as their “helper” (paraklētos), was leaving. But he told his followers that another “helper” (paraklētos)  would be available after that time.

Reading the context of these two chapters gives us understanding of what this “helper” would be.

John 14:1,2 [James Moffatt translation]:
Let not your hearts be disquieted; you believe — believe in God and also in me.
In my Father’s house there are many abodes; were it not so, would I have told you that I was going to prepare a place for you?

If Jesus was not going to prepare a place for his disciples, he would not have told them that he was.

John 14:3-6 [James Moffatt translation]:
And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me, so that you may be where I am.
And you know the way to where I am going.”
“Lord,” said Thomas, “we do not know where you are going, and how are we to know the way?”
Jesus said to him, “I am the real and living way: no one comes to the Father except by means of me.”

This is still true today. Jesus Christ is the real and living way. He is the only way to the Father. He is the mediator between God and men. We have boldness and access to the Father by the gift of holy spirit that the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ made available to us.

John 14:7-14 [James Moffatt translation]:
If you knew me, you would know my Father too. You know him now and you have seen him.”
“Lord,” said Philip, “let us see the Father; that is all we want.”
Jesus said to him, “Philip, have I been with you all this time, and yet you do not understand me? He who has seen me has seen the Father. What do you mean by saying, ‘Let us see the Father’?
Do you not believe I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I speak to you all I do not speak of my own accord; it is the Father who remains ever in me, who is performing his own deeds.
Believe me, I am in the Father and the Father is in me: — or else, believe because of the deeds themselves.
Truly, truly I tell you, he who believes in me will do the very deeds I do, and still greater deeds than these. For I am going to the Father,
and I will do whatever you ask in my name, that the Father may be glorified in the Son;
I will do whatever you ask me in my name.

The Father was in Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ was in the Father. All the fullness of God bodily was in Christ (Colossians 2:9). God was in Christ reconciling the world to Him (II Corinthians 5:19). Jesus Christ was in the Father, for he always did the Father’s will.

Jesus knew that those who believed on him would do “still greater deeds” when they received the gift of holy spirit. Today any born-again believer can lead others to Christ and eternal salvation.

John 14:15-18 [James Moffatt translation]:
If you love me you will keep my commands, and I will ask the Father to give you another Helper [paraklētos] to be with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth: the world cannot receive him, because it neither sees nor knows him, but you know him, because he remains with you and will be within you. I will not leave you forlorn; I am coming to you.

Jesus knew that he was leaving, and that the holy spirit they were to receive would be eternal life. That gift would be with them “for ever.” It is called “Christ in you” (Colossians 1:27) because it is all the fullness of what Christ made available. That is how he came to them.

John 14:19,20 [James Moffatt translation]:
A little while longer and the world will see me no more; but you will see me, because I am living and you will be living too.
You will understand, on that day, that I am in my Father and you are in me and I am in you.

We make Jesus our lord by using what he made available to us. He gave us direct access to the Father. God was in Christ, and now it is Christ in us when we are born again. God, in Christ, in you!

John 14:21-27 [James Moffatt translation]:
He who possesses my commands and obeys them is he who loves me, and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and appear to him.”
“Lord,” said Judas (not Judas Iscariot), “why is it that you are to appear to us, and not to the world?”
Jesus answered, “If anyone loves me he will obey my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and take up our abode with him.
He who does not love me does not obey my word; and what you hear me say is not my word but the word of the Father who sent me.
I have told you all this while I am still with you,
but the Helper [paraklētos], the holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and recall to you everything I have said.
Peace I leave to you, my peace I give to you; I give it not as the world gives its ‘Peace!’ Let not your hearts be disquieted or timid.

How can we have the peace that Christ promised us? By receiving God’s gift of holy spirit.  Jesus Christ brought us peace with God (Romans 5:1) and peace with other believers (Ephesians 2:14,15).

John 14:28-31 [James Moffatt translation]:
You heard me tell you I was going away and coming back to you; if you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father — for the Father is greater than I am.
I tell you this now, before it occurs, so that, when it does occur, you may believe.
I will no longer talk much with you, for the Prince of this world is coming. He has no hold on me;
his coming will only serve to let the world see that I love the Father and that I am acting as the Father ordered. Rise, let us be going.”

Jesus knew that God, his Father, was greater than even Jesus himself. The Father gave His Son authority as the Messiah to make available the kingdom of God. Jesus knew at this time that Satan, “the Prince of this world,” was orchestrating events that would end in Jesus’ crucifixion and death. But the Devil had “no hold” on Jesus Christ. Jesus obeyed His Father, died for us, and was raised from the dead!

John 17:1-11 [James Moffatt translation]:
So Jesus spoke; then, lifting his eyes to heaven, he said: “Father, the time has now come; glorify thy Son that thy Son may glorify thee,
since thou hast granted him power over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom thou hast given to him.
And this is eternal life, that they know thee, the only real God, and him whom thou hast sent, even Jesus Christ.
I have glorified thee on earth by accomplishing the work thou gavest me to do;
now, Father, glorify me in thy presence with the glory which I enjoyed in thy presence before the world began.
I have made thy Name known to the men whom thou hast given to me from the world (thine they were, and thou gavest them to me), and they have held to thy word.
They know now that whatever thou hast given me comes from thee,
for I have given them the words thou gavest me, and they have received them; they are now sure that I came from thee and believe that thou didst send me.
I pray for them — not for the world but for those whom thou hast given me do I pray; for they are thine
(all mine is thine and thine is mine), and I am glorified in them.
I am to be in the world no longer, but they are to be in the world; I come to thee. Holy Father, keep them by the power of thy Name which thou hast given me, that they may be one as we are one.

How was God going to glorify Jesus Christ? By raising him from the dead. Jesus prayed that those who believed on him would be “one” as Jesus was with the Father. This happened on the day of Pentecost when people were first born again. They received “power from on high,” the gift of holy spirit. This was the same power that raised Christ from the dead (Ephesians 1:19,20).

John 17:20-23 [James Moffatt translation]:
Nor do I pray for them alone, but for all who believe in me by their spoken word;
may they all be one! As thou, Father, art in me and I in thee, so may they be in us — that the world may believe thou hast sent me.
Yea, I have given them the glory thou gavest me, that they may be one as we are one —
I in them and thou in me — that they may be made perfectly one, so that the world may recognize that thou hast sent me and hast loved them as thou hast loved me.

There it is! We can make Jesus lord by receiving God’s gift of holy spirit and walking in love. When we “walk by the spirit,” we are carrying out Jesus’ great desire for those who believe in him by the spoken Word of God.

John 17:24-26 [James Moffatt translation]:
Father, it is my will that these, thy gift to me, may be beside me where I am, to behold my glory which thou hast given me, because thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.
O just Father, though the world has not known thee, I have known thee, and they have known that thou hast sent me;
so have I declared, so will I declare, thy Name to them, that the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

Today, we have God’s love shed abroad in our hearts by the gift of holy spirit given to us (Romans 5:5). We are to know the love of Christ which passes human knowledge (Ephesians 3:19). That is why Jesus declared the Father’s name to his disciples, and that is why we believed in our day and time. So that we can have the Father’s love in us, and show it forth to others.

NEXT: God’s Love: Making Jesus Christ Lord – Part 2, Back to Basics