08-15-24-DAILY READING-ENG.

EXPERIENCING THE SPIRIT

                                 THE EVER-PRESENT GOD

My Father has been working until now, and I have been working…. Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does; and He will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel. —JOHN 5:17, 19-20 The word God in today's culture is no longer understood as it was in times past.

The secular culture has misused God's name and stripped it of its original meaning. There was a day when the idea of God as the creator and sustainer of the universe was presupposed and accepted as truth. In fact, the Bible doesn't even attempt to prove God's existence, for it didn't have to. Instead, the Bible readily accepts His existence as an undeniable fact, with the assumption that everyone believes in God in some form or another. Our English word God translates the Hebrew words El and Elohim, which were essentially generic terms meaning “god” or “mighty one.” They convey a transcendent being upon whom everything in the universe depends.

Yet God is much more than a transcendent being who dwells somewhere in the sky. He's a personal God who's very active in the world in which we live. GOD IS AT WORK When Jesus said, “My Father has been working until now” (John 5:17), He was pointing to a simple yet profound truth: the heavenly Father is working all around us, and He has been from the beginning of time. Whether you see Him at work is irrelevant to the fact of God's presence in our world. He is actively and intimately involved in both the affairs of this world and the details of your life. So the role of the Holy Spirit is not to bring God's presence to the world, but to reveal it. His presence must be revealed because, as we've previously mentioned, sin causes spiritual deadness that blinds our hearts to God's activity; we cannot see Him or respond to His activity unaided by His Spirit.

When Jesus talked in John 5 about the Father's work on earth, He went on to say, “The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does” (verses 19—20). All that Jesus did on earth was in response to what He saw the Father doing. The intriguing implication is that the Father had to show Jesus what He was doing. Even the Son of God had to have His eyes opened to the activity of His Father. The most important element in what Jesus is saying here is that little word loves: “The Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things.” The same is true with us. Our heavenly Father desires a love relationship with us that's real and practical. So He gives us the Holy Spirit to help us know and respond to His purposes in our lives. Jesus likened our love relationship with God to that between a father and child, and He taught us about the Holy Spirit's connection to it: “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” (Luke 11:13).