Today’s Reading: John 14:25-26
Hearing God’s Voice for Today:
“These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”
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The teachings Jesus gave to his disciples in John 13–17 comprise what is commonly called the Upper Room Discourse. They are among the most intimate insights he shared with them. He wanted these truths to be indelibly etched in their minds.
Here, Jesus promised them again that the Helper, the third person of the Godhead, would be sent to them in his name. He would ask the Helper to come, and the Helper would respond without hesitation.
Note that Jesus called the Helper “he.” That’s because he is a person. When he indwells you, you have a personal, living, and dynamic relationship with him. Because the Helper lives in you, his very nature is within you.
But don’t miss the great work the Holy Spirit did through his disciples in the writings of the New Testament—God’s Word. Jesus said that the Helper would bring to their minds all his teachings. Their written words about his life in the Gospels and instructions to the churches about right doctrine and practice would be his very words written through them.
This work of the Holy Spirit allows us to have confidence in the words of the New Testament. The words written by the disciples were supernatural— their words were actually God’s words. Their insights were actually God’s insights.
What the disciples wrote down was not guesswork. It wasn’t from human hearts. All the words of the New Testament are God-breathed. The disciples’ written words were Jesus’ words. That makes them reliable, authoritative, and accurate.
You can trust the Bible. It’s not mere human opinion. It’s not from a group of people who wrote down mere subjective thoughts. It’s God’s authoritative Word.
Through the ages, the Helper guided prophets and apostles to write down exactly what the Father willed them to say. They were not mere spiritual stenographers, but real men, in real times, listening to and being led by the Helper to pen the Father’s heart.
The fact they were chosen by the Father to write down his words gives those words complete authority. The Helper guided them in this work.
The Bible is God’s Word—guided and overseen by the Helper, the Holy Spirit, the silent sovereign, and the third person of the Trinity.
Read the Word with confidence. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the Word of God stands forever.6 Heaven and earth will disappear, but Jesus’ words will never disappear.7 It gives hope and encouragement. It prospers wherever it is sent, read, believed, and obeyed.
Believe that its promises are true.
[from “Hearing the Voice of God” by Pastor David Chadwick, Moments of Hope Church, Charlotte, NC]