John 8 - Tuesday 29th October

Today’s chapter is John 8

Tom writes:

The devil is a bit of a background figure for the majority of the bible but he has a massive impact on the whole redemption story. I wonder how much you are aware of him? One of the biggest changes in my faith in recent years has been a growing awareness of the realness of the devil. In this passage Jesus calls out the devil as an enemy who needs to be defended against. Jesus then shows how the devil has bodies on the ground; although the agents he has (the Pharisees) don’t even realise they are working for him. Jesus’ beef with the pharisees was that they echoed the devil’s song that prevents people from building their identities on the loving words of God. The devil advocates for us to base our identity on our history or our performance. The devil loves us to think our salvation ultimately depends on ourselves. The devil will put people around us who tell us that real life is found in us being true to ourselves, that the key to a better future is us believing in ourselves, that you can do “it” if you try hard enough or are smart enough or if you get that lucky break. These people don’t realise they are echoing the accusations of the Accuser. Unwittingly they are making us slaves to a law that we can never keep; they are heaping up burdens on us that will crush us in the end.

Even the best wisdom - like that of the Torah - ends up killing us because we are broken humans who cannot achieve our own salvation. Any identity based on what we find within or on what we can achieve for ourselves will carry that same brokenness inherent within it. We need One to come from outside to liberate us from the brokenness we feel but cannot diagnose, from that crushing slave master that looms over us but we cannot shake off. Jesus comes to bring that intervention. He was sent to us by the Father of all and he knows what our true problem is. Jesus holds eternal wisdom about our greatest problems and how to see them resolved.  And so the fight in this age is to build our identity on him; to decide who we are not by what others say about us - whether good or bad - or by how good or bad we really are, but to follow his light and to gladly listen to every word that he speaks.

Question for reflection

How much does the opinion of others affect your identity? Who does Jesus say you are?