John 14:12 – Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father.
As Jesus partakes of His last meal with His disciples, He shares some of His most intimate thoughts. He knows the events which are about to take place would shake their world to the very core. The chapter begins with Jesus saying, “Let not your heart be troubled.” He points them to His Father as the source of belief. He assures them that He is going to prepare a place for them in the Father’s house. He also assures them that as He goes, He will also return for them so where He is, they might be also.
Jesus assures them that He is the way to the Father. No man can come to the Father except through the Son. He says, by knowing Him one should know the Father. Everything we see in Jesus is what the Father is like. He is full of compassion. He loves the unlovely. He is a provider. He is a protector. He heals and delivers from evil. He forgives the vilest of sinners and transforms their lives.
Jesus reinforces the fact that the words He speaks are not His, but they originate from the Father. He also makes it clear that the works He performs are not His works, but the Father’s works through Him (John 14:10). He gives them two options for belief. “Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me: or else believe Me for the very work’s sake” (John 14:11).
Some have trouble believing the words of Christians because they do not see or experience the reality of those words in the life of the confessing Christian. Jesus modeled how we are to live out the believing life. He modeled this for us by allowing the Father to fill Him with the Father’s life both in word and deed. He gave us the Holy Spirit who is the Spirit of the Father and the Spirit of the Son. This is the greater works Jesus promised we would do. We are not just to model the Father and the Son, but we are to pray for others to receive the Holy Spirit, even as we have received Him.
God did not intend that we should try to be like Jesus in our own effort. He fills us with His Holy Spirit so His life can be lived through us. This is why Paul could say, “We offer ourselves as a model for you, so that you would follow our example” (2 Thessalonians 3:9). Paul was a model to the saints, as we too should be a model for others. Not in our own effort, but by the power of God.
Daily, we need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. It is only the Holy Spirit who can produce the life of the Son and the subsequent life of the Father in us. In the natural, one’s identity comes through their father. The scriptures reveal that Jesus came for a number of reasons, one of which was to reveal His Father to Israel. Their identity was wrapped up in Abraham as their father. Jesus came to reveal the one in whom Abraham trusted. Through the Spirit of God, by faith, Abraham saw Jesus’ day. Jesus wanted Israel to find their identity in the heavenly Father. He wants the same for each of us. Allow the Holy Spirit to reveal more of the Father to you. Let your full identity be in Him.
Father, I believe in You and I believe in Jesus whom You sent. I choose to receive my identity from You. I pray for Your life to be revealed in me, the fruit of the Holy Spirit. I ask the Holy Spirit to make me a model for others, as You did with Paul.