12 Later, Jesus talked to the people again, saying, “I am the light of the world. The person who follows me will never live in darkness but will have the light that gives life.”
13 The Pharisees said to Jesus, “When you talk about yourself, you are the only one to say these things are true. We cannot accept what you say.”
14 Jesus answered, “Yes, I am saying these things about myself, but they are true. I know where I came from and where I am going. But you don’t know where I came from or where I am going. 15 You judge by human standards. I am not judging anyone. 16 But when I do judge, I judge truthfully, because I am not alone. The Father who sent me is with me. 17 Your own law says that when two witnesses say the same thing, you must accept what they say. 18 I am one of the witnesses who speaks about myself, and the Father who sent me is the other witness.”
19 They asked, “Where is your father?”
Jesus answered, “You don’t know me or my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father, too.” 20 Jesus said these things while he was teaching in the Temple, near where the money is kept. But no one arrested him, because the right time for him had not yet come.
Read John 8:12-20 in context and/or in other translations on BibleGateway.com!
While reading the passage for this journal entry, a phrase jumped out at me. While I am sure that I’ve read it numerous times before, this particular time, it stood out as distinct.
The phrase is how this passage ends. The last portion of verse 20 says, “But no one arrested him, because the right time for him had not yet come.”
This stood out to me because John, the author of this gospel, is drawing our attention onto something significant: There were God-established times for each of the events in Jesus’ life. There was a time to grow (the younger years), a time to witness/preach/teach, a time to heal, and a time to be arrested (and be crucified).
In Jesus’ life, He had a lot of flexibility in how He ministered because He understood that nothing would happen to Him unless it was included in the God-approved events for His phase of life. Jesus was able to be free from worry because He had complete trust in the Father’s care.
This leads me to think about my life today, and it prompts me to ask myself some challenging questions:
If God is in control and He had established times for Jesus’ life, does He have established times for my life?
If so, knowing that everything that happens has passed the “God-allowed” test for this period of life, would that prompt me to live differently – maybe even more trusting and more fearlessly?
God has promised He will not allow anything beyond what we can handle to come our way, however, God may have a bigger idea of what can be handled than we do. Sometimes it feels like He pushes us out of our comfort zone this way – though in some cases, we could also understand this as God waking us up out of our state of laziness.
God didn’t allow Jesus to be arrested until the time was right, and He will never allow us to face anything in our current phase of life that didn’t pass His approved list of events for our lives.
This thought was inspired by studying the Walking With Jesus “Reflective Bible Study” package. To discover insights like this in your own study time, click here and give Reflective Bible Study a try today!
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