John 16 Three words to remember:
John has written all of these words that we might believe and become overcomers. In John 16 once again John returns to his prologue ideas: Jesus is the Word from the beginning. John used three words repeatedly: truth, love, witness and this chapter adds one more overcomer. John quoted the words of Jesus: I AM the way, the truth, and the life and NO man comes to the Father but through Me.
John used the word truth 45 times. He used the word love 80 times. Jesus called he and his brother Sons of Thunder and they lived by that motto until their deaths. Yet, as John writes, he recalls that the Master “Taught that God is a God of love, that God loved His own Son, that God loved the world, that God is loved by Christ, that Christ loved the disciples, that Christ’s disciples loved Him, that all men should love Christ, that we should love one another, and that love fulfills that law. Love was a critical part of every element of John’s teaching and the dominant theme of his theology.” (Twelve Ordinary Men by John MacArthur pg 116) John was a thunderous defender of the truth and in that sense was a Son of Thunder to the end. John used the word witness nearly 70 times : the witness of John the Baptist, the witness of scripture, the witness of the Father, the witness of Christ, the witness of miracles, the witness of the Holy Spirit and the witness of the apostles. [ibid pg 116]
John 16 teaches us that we are to be overcomers no matter what the world throws at us. We have the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit to bring all that Jesus taught to our minds, [Jn 14:26] to empower us against the ruler of the enemy, who has been condemned by the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. As we wander through the OT and NT we come across the many who have overcome: Joseph, Ruth & Naomi, John (the last surviving apostle), Stephen, Paul, Peter and many others.
Jesus reminds us that as an overcomer we have joy that is made full. [Jn 16:24]. Is your joy full today? Are you an overcomer or do you yield to the ways of the enemy?
In Hebrews 12 the word “endure” is repeated as a reminder to not lose our focus on the heavenly rewards awaiting us. The faithful of chapter 11 were frail and weak as we, yet they were steadfastly focused on the reward, a better land, that is a heavenly one. Now, they line the sidelines as onlookers of a marathon cheering us onward. They ran their race perfectly ordained by our heavenly Father.We too have a perfectly designed and ordered race just for us. Some of us are toiling all night not realizing that our Master has a breakfast prepared for us at the seashore. Some of us stand at the edge of the field of harvest. We hear the Master say, look up, the fields are white for harvest for “The one who sows and the one who reaps can rejoice together.” The Master’s yoke is easy and his burden is light so run as a soldier who has trained outfitted in spiritual armor.