Daily Thought for: 17th June

LET NOT YOUR HEART BE TROUBLED: YE BELIEVE IN GOD, BELIEVE ALSO IN ME

John 14. 1-4

The Lord was well aware of the deep emotional disturbance His disciples felt on the night of His betrayal. Why were they so distressed? Confusion had filled their minds because the Lord had just predicted His impending denial by Peter. No doubt too, a deep sense of crisis had crept over their souls. On that most fateful of all nights, they were filled with panic and alarm. Amid all of this, the Lord says, ‘Let not your heart be troubled’.

How does He calm their fears? He points them to Himself. He reminds them that their faith was in God. Then He encourages them to put that same trust in Himself. The Gospel of John especially emphasises that the Lord Jesus is the object of personal faith, 1. 12; 3. 16. In this commandment, the Lord spells out the necessary implication of that teaching. It means that He Himself is fully divine. Trust placed in Him is exactly the same trust as that placed in God. He is worthy of the same confidence as the Father.

The claim to Deity implied in this command parallels the opening declaration of this Gospel that the Eternal Word is Himself God, 1. 1. It also anticipates the confession of Thomas, ‘My Lord and my God’, 20. 28. The aim of John the evangelist is to bring each reader of His Gospel to stand in the shoes of Thomas and to make that same confession.

The anxieties of the disciples centred on the future. What was going to happen to them was the thought which pressed in on their mind. So often, we share these anxieties. The Lord calls for trust in Himself because their future was in His hands. That meant it was secure. He had the best interests of the disciples very close to His heart. He was indeed going away from them. However, that going was in order to prepare a place for them in the eternal dwellings of His Father’s house. Not only so, but His going would be followed by His coming again. In that great event, He would receive them to Himself. Thus, where He is they would be. These are simple words, but what a prospect of eternal bliss they promise to us as to them. In all our anxieties let us trust in our Saviour.