Devotion 5.9.26

John 14

15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” 

"Fortunately, I keep my feathers numbered for just such occasions," noted Rooster in Warner Brothers Cartoons' Foghorn Leghorn, usually after a bomb went off stripping him of his feathers from the waste up as he gathered them. Foghorn, in his great southern aristocratic accent, is noting that he is always prepared.

Christ is preparing his disciples for a future without his physical presence. You know the full story, but do you find reassurance in his words to them? I have to admit, the first verse in the passage is a hard pill to swallow. I'm not alone. Paul writes in Romans 7:

"15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me."

I'm not the best at keeping Christ's commandments, as spelled out in his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5 - 7). That one on lust and judging others? Guilty. Anger = murder? Guilty. 

John does record a cure to this in his epistle: "8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1)

The helper Christ gives us in our baptism is someone who shapes our words in prayer, strengthens our faith daily through his Word and through the sacrament of the altar. The Holy Spirit, Christ's "helper," gives us direction to fulfill Christ's desires for us, spoken in his Word, his commands as he notes. Ultimately, he wants us to love him with our whole heart, mind, and spirit, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.

Pray with me: Gracious Father, forgive me when I do the things I ought not, those things I do not want to do. Forgive me for my sins, and cleanse me from all unrighteousness. Give me strength through your Holy Spirit to give me what I need for today, my daily bread, to do what is good and right in your eyes. Through your Son, I pray, Amen.