Looks like the mike i'm using is set to a higher output and it's taking forever. Adrian, i'll talk with you about that in the morning.
A Little While
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
What does He mean? “In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me.” Could these words of Jesus spoken two thousand years ago, haven meaning to you and me today in 2011?
Swell
Listen to Jesus in John 16:16. Jesus was in the final days before the cross. He had just promised that although he had to go the Holy Spirit would come. The disciples were grieving but that grief would turn to joy. Listen to Jesus words in John 16:16
“In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me.”
Welcome to HT, I’m CM sharing the GS that’s all about Jesus and a program called A Little While. All week, we are looking at sightings of Jesus in Revelation. The theme comes from our daily devotional guide Anchor, written this month by Dr. Don Jacobs, a Mennonite Bishop in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania. Don and his wife for many years were missionaries in East Africa and that’s where they caught the East Africa Revival, a movement of the Spirit that changed their lives for the better in following Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
Anchor Don Jacobs clip for Tuesday
Anchor author Dr. Don Jacobs and a sighting of Jesus, a sighting that all of us need.
Open-Let Me Rediscover You- Downhere- This is a brand new song- moving lyrics-
What does Jesus mean? It’s interesting that just a line later, the Gospel writer, John, repeats what Jesus said. John 16:17-18
“At this, some of his disciples said to one another, “What does he mean by saying, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me,’ and ‘Because I am going to the Father’?” 18 They kept asking, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We don’t understand what he is saying.”
What does Jesus mean by “a little while”?
First, does He mean the Second Coming? He would soon go away but would soon come back again a second time? YES. He did teach us to pray with expectation, “your kingdom come.” We’re told by Jesus in the final chapter in the Bible – Revelation 22 – “Behold, I am coming soon! . That’s once in Revelation 22:7. “Behold, I am coming soon.” That’s twice in Revelation 22:12. “Yes, I am coming soon.” That’s three times in Revelation 22:20. Jesus said he was coming back and coming back soon. The angels in Acts 1 confirmed to all the disciples what Christ Jesus proclaimed to John at the end of Revelation. The Holy Spirit is promised, the disciples are told to wait, and the Great Commission is proclaimed as God’s people are to be witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Acts 1:9, “After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. ‘Men of Galilee,’ they said, ‘why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.” So does he mean the Second Coming? YES.
OR does He mean by “in a little while you will see me no more and in a little while you will see me” the coming of the Holy Spirit? YES. In John 16, he had just told them he was going away. John 16:5, “now I am going to him who sent me, yet none of you asks me, where are you going/ because I have said these things, you are filled with grief. But I tell you the truth, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.” He was talking about this not long before in John 14. “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever – the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. The world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you will live. Paul speaks of our bodies as the temple for the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 13:
16 Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple. Jesus is quoted in Hebrews 13 as saying, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” Is this what He means in saying He’s going away but coming again through the Holy Spirit? YES.
OR, does He mean in saying,
“In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me.”
Does he mean the resurrection? He told them ahead of time in Mark 9:31
“The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days will rise.”
Mathew 12:40
For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
None of the disciples seemed to quite understand what he was teaching. We learn that on the Sunday after the crucifixion. John 20:
1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. 2 So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”
3 So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. 4 Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, 7 as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. 8 Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. 9 (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) 10 Then the disciples went back to where they were staying.
11 Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb 12 and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.
13 They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”
“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” 14 At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.
15 He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.”
She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).
17 Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
18 Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.” John 20. So obviously, Jesus had come back.
“In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me.”
Does he mean the resurrection? YES!
OR, could he mean in a little while – TODAY – you will see me? What in the world am I talking about.? And this is where life gets real. Maybe you think I’ve just been exegeting theology. Maybe you think this has nothing to do with my life. I disagree. What’s troubling you? What’s breaking your heart? I’m thinking of the woman who walked up to me in Edmonton, Alberta, last Saturday to tell me her son had died of cancer a few months ago. She needed Jesus in her grief. I’m thinking of the man who came up to me a few days ago, telling me how he had lost his job and times were tight and he didn’t know how he could go on. He needed Jesus. Or the Christian man whose wife left and went to court for full-time custody of their only child, even thought he was the stay-at-home parent for the first eight years and their little boy’s life. He needed Jesus – NOW. Could Jesus have been talking about today? Could He have been talking about His Spirit, the Spirit of Christ?
Romans 8:9 You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ.
Philippians 1:19 for I know that through your prayers and God’s provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance.
Does He mean today, in your walk with Christ Jesus in the Spirit of Christ today? YES! I think the answer of what does He mean is all of the above. Jesus Christ came to earth to die on the cross and atone for the sins of His people. In a little while – after three years of ministry He died. But Jesus Christ came back from the dead in the resurrection. He left but sent the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit to abide in us as we abide in Him. He’s also coming back a second time to set this world right. All the issues we face in the world. Issues created by dishonorable tyrants, punshing their citizens unjustly. He will set right the disorder caused by a creation gone awry. The earth that keeps shaking. The waves to tsunamis that keep flooding. The rivers and tornadoes that take their toll in lives and property. It’s going to be all right in the end when he returns. It’s also Jesus being here today at moments when we least expect him and when we need him the most – which really is all the time. How do I say today? Well, think about this. John the Apostle was close to 95 years old when he was imprisoned on the island of Patmos and was worshipping in the Spirit on a Sunday morning. The church, including churches he had helped to found were under great Roman persecution from a new Emperer. Jesus came that day to John. In the early words of Revelation, there was someone tending the lamps in the throneroom in heaven. Admid the lights was THE light. And John, like right after the resurrection, didn’t really notice this someone, until a voice started speaking and he turned to look and there was the son of man. The son of man. Not just Daniel’s son of man. It was Jesus, who called himself repeatedly the son of man. Here with him was Jesus, the light to the world light, the light of John’s life and I pray the light of your life. John needed Jesus and Jesus was there. What about you? Don’t you need to see Jesus today? Why don’t you turn around … just like Mary turned around in the garden by the empty tomb, or John turned around in this experience of heaven in Revelation 1. Would you join now and ask for Jesus to speak to you today. Would you ask to see him for the first time or maybe the first time in a very long time. I will never leave you nor will I forsake you. That’s my Jesus.
CLOSE
Turn your Eyes Upon Jesus- Kathy Troccoli- From the album "Draw Me Close".
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Telling the Great Story that's all about Jesus ... in a written daily devotional, Anchor has ministered to thousands for more than 30 years. Sent each month by mail, this devotional guide features short Scripture selections with the writer's insights and experiences woven into a few short paragraphs each day....
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