October 26

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The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hand. John 3:35

If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever – the Spirit of truth… John 14:15-17

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🔊 The key to all spiritual life is to love Jesus, not what He can give.  When my wife Vicki was a teenager at school, one of her friends arrived one day in a beautiful classic car.  Of course, everyone wanted to know how he had got it.  The answer was that he had a paper round.  He had been delivering papers one day and had been invited in by a lonely old man to sit down and have a cup of tea with him.  He had agreed and, from that day on, he regularly visited the man, and over the months they became friends.  Then one day the old man died.  A couple of weeks later, the boy got a letter from the old man’s solicitor informing him that the old man had left everything to him in his will – which included a house, some money and a classic car!  This event perhaps made dozens of boys think of starting a paper round, and look hopefully at all the lonely old folk they knew.  But the truth is that the boy didn’t have his eyes on the old man’s money – he simply loved him.  The Kingdom of God doesn’t function on ‘things’ like power, money or influence – there is no such ‘reward’ for loving Jesus.  The Kingdom of God functions on the simplicity of a loving heart.  If a person loves Jesus for anything they can get from Him, then they are attempting the robbery of the ages.  It would be like someone marrying for money.  It is an offensive concept, and will never make any impact on the Father in heaven.  The reward is to love Him.  Whether or not anything else comes our way is not important.  When we have Him, we really do have everything.