Because I live, you will also live. Jn 14:19
3 breaths, we live.
If there is one person in this world who is sensitive to your needs, it is God the Father. In Matt 6:25 it says, ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, or what you will wear…your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well’.
God was looking at us, and He saw the very thing we lacked. He was looking at men and saw that sin was taking away the breath of life that He had breathed into us through Adam, because sin was killing us since the day we were born, as (the Father says) every inclination of our hearts are evil from childhood (Gen8:21). Sin was killing us, and we didn’t even know it. And sin being too much of a deception for us, we failed to realise that we are full of dead men’s bones inside, that we may have looked beautiful on the outside, but inside we are full of decay and wickedness. Sin kept us from being perfectly close to God, the Father of creation. And because of our inclination towards sin, the Father had to stand a distance away from us, no longer able to be close to us in the same garden as He once was with Adam and Eve.
If left to our own devices, we would have thought that what we needed was food, clothes, drinks and land and our family. But Jesus asks, “Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?” And if our brothers and sisters and mother and father were so important, why did the Lord say to us to leave them but follow Him: “I tell you the truth, no one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake” of me and my gospel will “fail to receive many times in this age and in the age to come, eternal life”.
And if worldly possessions were of such importance, why did the Lord say to the rich young man that if he wanted to be perfect, he should go and sell all his possessions to give to the poor, and then follow Him? If money was of such importance to the Lord, why did He commend the poor widow, by saying, “I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty, put in everything – all she had to live on.”
No, God looked at us, and He knew that the one thing we lacked was not family, not houses, not land, not money and not clothes and not food.
What we lacked before Jesus Christ was life.
No body had life until Jesus came from heaven, became flesh and made his dwelling among us. For if Jesus had never come, there would be no one to believe in. But now since he has come and is returned to the Father and sitting at the Father’s right hand, he who believes in Him has everlasting life, for He is the resurrection and the life.
No body had life before God sent his Son to give His life for a ransom for many. None of us had life in us until Jesus poured out his blood of the covenant for the forgiveness of sins. Unless and until we eat the flesh of Jesus, and drink his blood, we have no life in us. Whoever eats his flesh and drinks his blood has eternal life, and will be raised up on the last day – which is the Father’s will- that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life and He will raise us up on the last day. The flesh of Jesus is the bread of life, for He is the living bread which came down from heaven. He gave His flesh for us to eat so we will live forever.
In Jesus is life for He is life. That life is the light of men for Jesus is the light of the world. Since we have life in us, we will not stumble because we will always walk by the light. We who follow Jesus will never walk in darkness because in us is the light of life.
The light of life is what we possess as long as we follow Jesus so that the darkness within us which brings about death is purged and destroyed completely. The light of life came to us, ‘people living in darkness’ and we have seen a great light; on us ‘living in the land of the shadow of death, a light has dawned’. As Paul writes, God who said, ‘Let light shine out of the darkness’, made his light shine in our hearts to give us light of the knowledge of the glory of God (2 Cor 4:6) – and the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ is found only in Truth, because Jesus is the way and the truth and the life. If you don’t have truth, you will never have life. But you have truth and hold on to it, you also have life because truth sets you free from slavery to sin. Jesus is the only way to truth and to life. Salvation is not found in anyone else (Acts 4:12) but the name of Jesus Christ because it was Jesus alone who died for your sins. It was Jesus alone who finished the work of the Father by doing His will. It was Jesus alone the Father sent to die for you so that you will not be condemned but have eternal life.
The truth simply is this: Jesus said, “Because I live, you will also live.” (Jn 14:19) “For as the Father has life in Himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself.” (Jn 5:26) “Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me” (Jn6:57).
Our Father in heaven saw us, and he saw that there was no life in us. He saw that we had a problem, a serious problem, so He sent his one and only Son. His Son has life in Him, because He has life in Him and He and His Son are one, so that whoever is in Jesus will have life, and life to the fullest. It is written that on the cross, Jesus said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit”, and he breathed his last. “Man dies and is laid low, he breathes his last and is no more”. But when the Lord died, He is risen back to life for death has no hold over Him. He is lifted up and draws all men to himself. He is glorified and the Father is glorified in Him. It was not until Jesus breathed His last did we began to breathe the breath of life again, for His death breathed into us the second breath of life.
After God gave us His Son, He gave us His Holy Spirit, to live in us and to be with us. Jesus said, “The Spirit gives life, the flesh counts for nothing. The words I speak to you are spirit and they are life”, for “flesh gives birth to flesh, but Spirit gives birth to spirit”. After the resurrection of Jesus, He visited His disciples. The Lord breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit”. And as our flesh receives the Holy Spirit and breathes Him into us, our flesh is re-born and our spirit re-born with it. The Holy Spirit is our third breath of life.
Therefore, the drink that we need is the blood of Jesus he gave us which becomes in us a spring of water welling up to eternal life. The food we need is his flesh which is the bread of life and the words he speaks to us is also life. And we do not need to worry about where we will sleep and what we will wear because flesh counts for nothing, but it is the Spirit that counts, the Spirit of life that makes us born again.
And the breath of life we have in us is complete because we have received the breath of life from the Father, from the Son and from the Holy Spirit.
So you see, God is sensitive to our needs and He knew what we needed, even before we knew we didn’t have what it takes to live beyond our mortal existence. God has given us life even before we knew we were dying. And if not for Jesus whom He sent, we would have all been dead and none the wiser. Our Father has solved our problems and taken care of our needs even before we asked.
So in return I ask you today, have you been sensitive to God’s needs? Have you been sensitive to Jesus’ needs? And have you been sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s needs? Do you know what their needs are? And if you don’t know, have you taken the time to ask, just as God has taken the time to look at your life and has determined what you need, and Jesus’ has taken the time to solve your problem in the Father? Is it not a simple question, “Lord, what do you need me to do for you today?” and then waiting on Him?
Love is a two-way street. True love, sincere love is not take and take, but it is give and take. What is the thing that the Lord has given you? He gave you his life, so that you will have life. He gave you his love, so that you will have love. In return, do you love him with all your heart, all you soul, all your mind and all your strength?
If you do, then you would know what he needs, and it would be your pleasure to give it to Him, even before he asks. Because if you love him with all your understanding, you would have instinctively known what he wanted, even before he opened his heart to express it to you.
Did Jesus have to ask Mary Magdalene to prepare his body for burial? No it is not written so, because if he had to ask, it would not have been as much of a beautiful a thing to Him. If he had to ask, it might have been just another errand just as finding the donkey to ride into Jerusalem. And was it cheap perfume that Mary used to pour on the Lord? No, it was the best that she had, she poured it on His feet and wiped His feet with his hair. But was Mary sensitive to the Lord’s needs? Yes, even after the Lord was buried, she was sensitive to His needs. She went to His tomb on the Sabbath to take care of his body.
Through Mary, the Lord fulfilled what the Father said in 1 Sam 2:30: “Those who honour me I will honour.” Mary honoured the Lord with her love, and the Lord in turn gave the highest honour to her by tying His gospel with her, the one that He paid for in blood and life, when he said in Mark 14:9 & Matt 26:14: “I tell you the truth, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.”
As it is written for us, Mary was one of the women who had followed Jesus and cared for his needs (Mk 15:41). So too, if you don’t follow Jesus, you will never know what his needs are, and you will never be able to care for them. If you don’t take the time to follow Jesus to get to know Jesus so that you may love Him, you will never know how and when to take care of his needs. And why should you make such an effort? Because He cares for your needs. Jesus said, “Because I live, you also live”, I repeat You live because He lives. He has taken care of your needs, even without you asking for it.
So honour the one who honours you. Be sensitive to his needs. Know what they are and fulfil them. There are 3 choices for us.
We can be like Peter and the other disciples who could not stay up to keep watch with the Lord the night that his soul was overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death, even though twice the Lord specifically asked them to. Or we can be like the disciples we ran the errand and fetched the donkey for the Lord because He told them to go there.
Or we can take the example from Mary, who took care of the Lord’s needs without His asking, and what’s more did so without asking for anything in return (for it was not recorded for us that she had asked the Lord if she could sit at his right hand nor what she will get since she has left everything to follow him).
Take your pick of what kind of love you will offer to the Lord. But remember he is the King of kings and the Lord of lords, and only the best is befitting for a King.
Amen Holy Spirit.
