ESOCS Devotional 18 June 2025 – Not As The World Gives
MEMORY VERSE: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” John 14:27
TEXT: JOHN 14:22-31
Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, “Lord, how is it that You will manifest Yourself to us, and not to the world?”
23 Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. 24 He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me.
25 “These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. 26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. 28 You have heard Me say to you, ‘I am going away and coming back to you.’ If you loved Me, you would rejoice because I said, ‘I am going to the Father,’ for My Father is greater than I.
29 “And now I have told you before it comes, that when it does come to pass, you may believe. 30 I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me. 31 But that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave Me commandment, so I do. Arise, let us go from here.
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Judas (not Iscariot) asks a question that many of us may have asked. Why is it that Jesus shows Himself to us but not to the whole world? (14:22). Jesus answers the question indirectly. If someone loves Him, he will keep His word, and then He and the Father will come to him and make their home with him (14:23). In other words, the question is not so much why it is that Jesus does not reveal Himself to everyone, but why is it that everyone does not love Jesus. For if people do love Jesus, then, they have the very presence of God Himself with them!
Perhaps such lessons seem complicated or seemed complicated at the time to His disciples, but Jesus immediately promises the Helper, the Holy Spirit, who will teach them all things and bring to remembrance everything He has said (14:26). Obviously, the phrase “all things” does not imply all without qualification (the Holy Spirit will not directly make us exceptional at mathematics, trigonometry, rocket science, ancient classical literature, etc.), but “all things” as defined by the context. That is, the “remembrance” of everything that Jesus has said.
Jesus closes with a promise of “peace” and related instructions. This peace is “not as the world gives” (14:27). That is, Jesus’ peace is not dependent on circumstances, is not the absence of all trouble, is not a mere emotional or temporary peace. Jesus’ peace is the objective peace that comes from being reconciled to God, and therefore we are able to walk in this world with the magnanimity and wholeness that only Jesus’ peace can bring.
Do you have that peace? “Let not your hearts be troubled; neither let them be afraid” (14:27). School yourself to not be troubled because of the peace of God that you have with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you not have this peace? Seek it! Ask for it! In Christ, you may be at peace with God. All you need is to trust Him.
CHALLENGES
- Do you truly have peace with God? Search your heart and the certain you do.
PRAYER POINT
- Father, your peace which passeth all understanding I receive into my bosom, in Jesus unchallengeable name. Amen.
FURTHER READING: Ezekiel 12:1-28; John 15:1-19
ESOCS Devotional 18 June 2025
