Connecting The Dots - Week 17 Notes

             Connecting The Dots – Week 17

                Immanuel (Where Jesus is)

Key verse: If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him. (John 12:26)

 The key sentence in the above text is, “where I am, there my servant will be also”. It is sandwiched interestingly between two statements about service. Too often what we fail to remember is the converse; Jesus also delights to serve us (John 13:8-17), and that no matter where we are he is continually with us.

• “…they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”)” (Matthew 1:23 NASB), (Isaiah 7:4 NIV)

• “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness.” (Colossians 2:9-10 NIV)

• “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also. In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.” (John 14:18-20 NASB)

 When Jesus’ birth was foretold he was literally named to be, “with us”. Before he was crucified Jesus made sure we understood that when he went away physically he would come back and live in us. Imagine all of that together for a moment, the totality of all that God is lives in him, he lives in us, and he is always near to us.  

 What a comforting and beautiful promise; to be able to begin every morning knowing that anywhere we are, whatever problem we might confront that day, and even after we lay our heads down to rest at night, Jesus, the King of Kings is “with us”. 

• “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.” (Psalms 139:7-12 NIV)

• “Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.” (John 14:23 NASB)

 So then, even as Jesus assures us of this: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.  Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” (John 12:23-24), we are also assured of eternity as we consider both his Cross and our own: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” (John 14:1-3 NIV)

1. What are you willing to do to be where Jesus is in you daily walk?

2. How does it comfort you personally to know that Jesus’ lives in you and has left you a promise of eternal life spent with him?

 

Ref. Scriptures: (John 12:27-28,30-32), (John 14:6-7), (John 14:16-20), (John 14:23), (John 16:7, 13-15), (Colossians 3:3-4), (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17)