[John 13:20 KJV] Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that receiveth whomsoever I send receiveth me; and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me.
I was reading that verse this morning, and one word popped out that I had not paid much attention to before. “Whomsoever”.
That “whomsoever” means that I cannot choose to receive only a select few of those whom Jesus has sent… but all… whomsoever. It would be extremely prideful and blind, to think that Jesus has a church of many millions, but has only sent to them a few, and those few happened to be the ones in my church.
That puts a sobering responsibility on me to recognize whomsoever He has sent, so that I can receive them, as He tells us to. Most of them, I will never meet, and never hear. But when I do meet them or hear them, I have a responsibility to recognize them, and receive them… IF Jesus has truly sent them.
The other huge responsibility this puts on me, is that I must know what it means to “receive” them. I’ll admit right now, that I need God to teach me what that means. One thing is obvious, though… to receive them can NOT mean that I must accept every word they teach and preach. There are way too many differences in what is preached, even by them whom Jesus has truly sent. They cannot all be right, and God is not going to tell me to accept a word that is not true. So there has to be a way to “receive” one whom He has sent, without believing them 100%.
That means I have GOT to hear the voice of the Lord for myself. But that should be normal. Jesus said in John 10, that His sheep hear His voice, and they follow Him. But that takes something. It requires getting very close and personal with the Lord. Frankly, it would be a lot easier, and more comfortable, to pick someone who has solid evidence that Jesus has sent him; and just accept and follow everything he teaches. But that would be lazy and irresponsible. And we should never think that we could stand before the Lord, and try to excuse our errors, by saying we were doing what someone whom He had sent told us to.
Unfortunately, that is what most Christians do. They are doing what Paul warned against in 1 Corinthians 3, where he called them carnal, and said he had to speak to them as unto babes, and they were not able to eat meat; because they were saying, “I am of Paul”, and “I am of Apollos”. Or “I am of Peter”, or “I am of Luther”, or “I am of Wesley”, or whomever…
That Word this morning is very sobering to me. I feel the fear of the Lord, and a lot of responsibility squarely on my shoulders. But I love the Word, and I love God’s correction, and reproof; and I am not going to shrink back from being a doer of ALL of His Word. I love Him way too much, to back off now. He is my LIFE! God knows that, and that is why I know He’ll keep teaching me, and correcting me, and revealing His ways to me.
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