John

John presents to us the divine Word manifest in flesh: the only begotten Son of the Father, the Son of God. And instead of a coming in power and glory, or in scrutiny of service, or as expecting a moral state of soul and heart to answer His own, He says in chapter 14, "I go"! I must take your heart and affections out of this place and all earthly hopes. I must lead them into the Father's house, where there are many mansions. David's kingdom and Messiah's glory must now fade away in your hopes and hearts. The day will come when all that earthly glory will be consummated. But your hopes are in another sphere. I am about to enter the Father's house as man. I have wrought out on the cross your title to be there. I enter it Myself in the title by which you will enter into it. Then "I will come again and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." John 14:3.
Thus His instruction deals with and supersedes the hopes of the Jewish hearts around Him, and, as a consequence, suits our hearts which have had no such hopes at all.
How blessed to find that the moment I am free in heart and conscience before the Father and in the knowledge of His grace, there was an abode in His house on high for me before ever the world was! Why is it that we never find any description of the Father's house in Scripture? You have the heavenly Jerusalem described in her wondrous glory and displayed as His bride, but never the Father's house. It is because you are supposed to be familiar with the Father's Son; the Father is revealed in Him. Then it is sufficient to know that He is there, and the heart rests content in peaceful joy in the sense that where Jesus is, it is enough! "That where I am, there ye may be also.”
There is only one other passage in John (Ch. 17:24) that brings you thus into heaven and the Father's house. This is suited to John, because he is occupied in unfolding God on earth in Christ, not as Paul who rather shows us Christ as a man gone on high, and our place in Him in glory.
Christ as seen in Each book of the New Testament
The King in Christ Matt. 2:2
The Servant in Christ Mark 10:45
The Man in Christ Luke 5:24
God in Christ John 1:1
Power in Christ Acts 3:16
Justification in Christ Rom. 4:25
Enriched in Christ 1 Cor. 1:5
Comforted in Christ 2 Cor. 1:5
Liberty in Christ Gal. 2:4
Raised and Seated in Christ Eph. 2:6
Rejoicing in Christ Phil. 3:3
Complete in Christ Col. 2:10
Hope in Christ 1 Thess. 1:3
Glorified in Christ 2 Thess. 2:14
Faith in Christ 1 Tim. 3:13
Grace in Christ 2 Tim. 2:1
Order in Christ Titus 1:5
Refreshing in Christ Philem. 1:20
Better in Christ Heb. 7:22
Doing in Christ James 2:16
Suffering in Christ 1 Peter 4:13
Knowledge in Christ 2 Peter 1:8
Love in Christ 1 John 4:17
Truth in Christ 2 John 3
Walking in Christ 3 John 3
Preserved in Christ Jude 1
Glorying in Christ Rev. 1:5,6
N. Berry
Questions and Answers
QUESTION: Should we continue to ask for many things of the Lord, such as more of the Spirit's power, increase of faith and conversion of relatives? Or when these requests have been once laid before Him, should we leave them in His hands?
ANSWER: God exercises our hearts and our faith in delaying to give the answer to our prayers at times. The earnestness of our prayer will be according to the exigency of our need, and the consciousness that God alone can give the answer. The heart is exercised and kept in dependence, waiting on Him for the reply. Faith is kept alive. Other sources are not looked to when the soul has learned that He alone can do what is needed. It is a mighty engine, that of prayer, fitting expression of the newborn soul's dependence on God, in contrast to that nature which always would be independent of Him, though it cannot escape His righteous judgment.
Daniel had to wait in fasting and mourning for three whole weeks at one time before he received the reply (Dan. 10). At another time, "Whiles I was speaking," he says the answer came. It marks the fact that we are not indifferent to the result when the heart can, in earnest entreaty, wait upon God.
We may find, like Paul, that it is better for us that our desires are withheld. He learned also the reason why they were withheld after his thrice-repeated prayer; thus he could boast in that which was the taunt of his enemies, and the trial of his friends (2 Cor. 12).
We need to be "filled with the Spirit," and we need that our faith may grow. Many are the needs of our hearts, and if God is pleased to bless His people He exercises their hearts in prayer. Paul was indebted to some praying sister, perhaps, who could agonize in prayer before the Lord for those gifts with which he carried on his service in the gospel field. He could agonize in prayer for those he never saw (Col. 2:1), and Epaphras, too, could labor earnestly in prayer for those he knew and loved (Col. 4:12).
In the midst of our cares and conflicts we have to "be careful for nothing," but to let our requests be made known to God. God, who has no cares, keeps our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. But we have also to "continue in prayer." Col. 4:2. We have also to "watch in the same with thanksgiving" for His ever-opened ear. One of the exhortations in Rom. 12:12 is "continuing instant in prayer," or it might read, "pursuing in prayer.”
The very "importunity" of the man at the unseasonable hour of midnight was the occasion of his obtaining the loaves (Luke 11:8). One can lay down no rules in such cases. The truly exercised heart gets its own answer from God. At times we can, with simple confidence, make known and commit the request to God. At other times the heart is conscious that it cannot but cry to God until the heart is at rest as to the petition. He will not give the answer till His own time, and meanwhile the soul is kept in earnest exercise. Faith is tested and patience tried, and the heart watches and waits on Him.
Again such is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us, and if we know that He hears us, we know we have the petitions that we desired of Him (1 John 5:14,15). He listens to everything which is in accordance with His will. He cannot fail in power, and we get the reply. The true heart would ask nothing contrary to His will.