The Jews were amazed (at Jesus' teaching) and remarked, “How does this man know all this — he has never been taught?”
Jesus replied to them, “My teaching is not really mine but comes from the one who sent me. If anyone wants to do God’s will, he will know whether my teaching is from God or whether I merely speak on my own authority…” (John 7:15-17) Do you see the roadblock that Jesus has thrown up in front of these people? They’ve been wondering about Him, having heard mysterious whisperings that have trickled down from the Galilee, and now here He stands, teaching right before them in the Temple court. Immediately they recognize the power in His words and the knowledge – the sheer immensity of knowledge – that seems to reside in His teachings. And so they want to, from the earthly side, understand it: “How does this man know all this…?” Which is a line of questioning with which He apparently does not want to deal: “My teaching is not really mine but comes from the one who sent me.” And then He raises the stakes, so that even listening to Him speak and teach requires the self-abandonment of Belief: “If anyone wants to do God’s will, he will know whether my teaching is from God or whether I merely speak on my own authority.” It is the desire to be of use to the Father’s will that unlocks the listening understanding; it is not first to understand, then to be about His will. And I’ll prove it to you – consider the exact inverse of these statements: “If anyone does not want to do God’s will, he will not know whether my teaching is from God or whether I merely speak on my own authority.” Do you see? It is setting our face to be of Kingdom-use that unlocks the full potential, the full understanding, of all Jesus’ words have to offer. Oh, let's abandon ourselves to Him today!
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