OUR FATHER WHO GAVE JESUS THE COMMAND TO LAY HIS LIFE DOWN

The book of John chapter 10 verse  17 - 21 reveals that the Father gave Jesus the impetus to lay His life down and to take it up again.

It was this abandon to His Father's will as a sacrificial life that Jesus was loved and highly favoured. 

In the garden of Eden, man chose to pick up his own life of selfish ambition to determine which course his life would take according to what seemed good to him. This earned mankind the enmity of God. 

In contrast, Jesus lived a sacrificial life that was submitted to God and he lived His life in strict accordance with the directives of God which gave Him the power to lay down His life and pick it up again.

17 “Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. 18 No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father.”

19 Therefore there was a division again among the Jews because of these sayings. 20 And many of them said, “He has a demon and is mad. Why do you listen to Him?”

21 Others said, “These are not the words of one who has a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?”

This revelations of Jesus' interactions with the Father were highly controversial to the people in Jerusalem who were listening to Him.

To some people, the concepts were so alien to them that they concluded that Jesus was speaking by a demonic entity or that He was insane.

Others reasoned that Jesus must be a genuine man God because it was only through God that the miracles He did like giving sight to the blind were possible.

Amen.

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