Today we will be reading from John 5:30-47:

30 “I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just because I seek to do not my own will but the will of him who sent me. 31 “If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true. 32 There is another who testifies on my behalf, and I know that his testimony to me is true. 33 You sent messengers to John, and he testified to the truth. 34 Not that I accept such human testimony, but I say these things so that you may be saved. 35 He was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light. 36 But I have a testimony greater than John’s. The works that the Father has given me to complete, the very works that I am doing, testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me. 37 And the Father who sent me has himself testified on my behalf. You have never heard his voice or seen his form, 38 and you do not have his word abiding in you, because you do not believe him whom he has sent. 39 “You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is they that testify on my behalf. 40 Yet you refuse to come to me to have life. 41 I do not accept glory from humans. 42 But I know that you do not have the love of God in you. 43 I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; if another comes in his own name, you will accept him. 44 How can you believe when you accept glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the one who alone is God? 45 Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; your accuser is Moses, on whom you have set your hope. 46 If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. 47 But if you do not believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say?”

Today we see Jesus continue what seems to be His life-long struggle with the religious leaders.  He is telling them that they never paid attention. They didn’t pay attention to John, though they could have gone and heard him preach anytime they wanted to.  They didn’t even pay attention to their own law, for Moses testified about Jesus.  

They had all these examples, all these witnesses, all these people and places that they could point to, but they never paid attention.  They didn’t see what was in their past; they didn’t even see what was happening in front of them.  And Jesus knows they haven’t.  You know how?  Verse 42 tells us?  They do not have the love of God in them. 

If they had the love of God in them, Jesus would have known that they had paid attention; if they had looked to their past or even their present, they would have known He was the Messiah. They would have been filled with great joy. They would have been filled with God’s love.  

That’s how folks know y’all. That’s how they know that we have met Jesus. That’s how they know that He is our Messiah, that He is our Savior, that He is our Lord. It’s not if we have it all it together, or if we know every verse, or if we are the holiest person to ever live. 

This is how folks know.  

Do we have the love of God in us?  The religious leaders didn’t. That is how Jesus knew that they had not seen. They didn’t have the love of God within them. 

How about us today?  Do we have the love of God within us? That’s how folks know. That’s how they know we are His.  Look at your life, your words, your actions, your posts on social media. Do folks see the love of God in you? That’s how they know. 

Today may we be that star pointing to Jesus. May folks see His love in us.  May they know we are His. 

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