11/07/2022 – Day 253 – John 16 – 18 //”Jesus Prays for All Believers” – 17: 20 – 26. (unfathomably sublime)
Suggestion: Pray these seven verses very slowly and out loud. I have found these verses, for at least the last 15 years or so of my walk with the Triune God to be the most sublimely joyful. It may start with the thought : I am in this story! Indeed , how is it I am invited to join the eternal dance of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit , in this timeless love circle. (this mental picture came from “Jesus the King” by Tim Keller and I resonated with it) But the beauty of it is it quickly transitions and most appropriately to a praise and wonder as in an “awe of God”. And that is where we want to be!
I studied the Muslim faith quite intensively about four years ago. God willing, I can see myself, prompted by the Holy Spirit sharing these verses early on. Why? We all have a hunger for a God that loves us unfathomably. It is how God designed us after all. Compare that to Allah and the Muslim faith where even the faintest possibility and magnitude of personal relationship is denied.
Think about it: I get it why the Muslims and other faiths have a hard time logically with the Triune God : Three persons – One God. But that exemplifies: God is love, no? What about Allah, a unipersonal God? Doesn’t love require a relationship by definition? So what did Allah do before man was created? Such a god can be all powerful but he can’t be all-loving. So the Apostle Paul had a good point when he wrote: “If we Christians are wrong, then we are the most pathetic creatures that have walked the earth.” But what if we’re right by the grace of God? To reject Him and be wrong, means eternal separation from God. How do we get to heaven on our own? It requires God’s perfect holiness for God is unfathomably holy. So God’s substitutionary atonement was the only way.
Two excellent resources, the case for Christ that points us back to John 17: 20 – 26:
- “Glad News! God Loves You My Muslim Friend” by Samy Tanagho (*A)
- “From Jihad to Jesus – An Ex-Militant’s Journey of Faith” by Jerry Rassamniet
(*A) – A short excerpt from Chapter 26 – Understanding the Sri-Unity (Trinity) of God:
“The impossibility of imagining the Tri-unity of God indicates that humans did not invent this doctrine. It is not surprising that it is impossible for us to imagine the God who created and controls the world…Because God is Spirit, infinite, and eternal, His being is beyond our imagination… The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are bound together in such a close unity that the life of each flows through each of the others.”
Soli Deo Gloria!