God's Joy in Jesus: Devotions with John PiperSample

Here in we meet an unholy heart-turmoil. “Let not your hearts be troubled.” This is a fretful failure to trust God fully for the problem we are facing. At first it may look like Jesus is addressing an anxiety that isn’t the one you’re dealing with. But hang on, because Jesus takes a surprising turn in this story.

You recall how this Gospel works. John tells us in John 20:31 what his goal for you is: “These are written so that you may believe (trust, be assured, treasure the reality) that Jesus is the Christ (the promise-fulfilling Messiah), the Son of God (the presence of God himself - God the Son - among us), and that by believing you may have life in his name.” And when he says “life” he means the connection with God’s life, through connection with Jesus. And that life includes the power not to have unholy turmoil of soul.

So what we encounter in this Gospel is the living God, the creator of the world, present among us humans, in our world in his Son - the infinitely loved, eternal, image and radiance of his essence and through faith, through believing and receiving him for all that he is, we are connected to this on and through him to the Father, and so share in eternal, supernatural life, even now.

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