“Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify Your name.” (John 12:27-28). Jesus was coming to the hour that He would die to fulfill the purpose for His life. At that time He asked the Father to be glorified. The Father was preparing to glorify the Son, it hadn’t happened yet, and the Son was already giving it back to the name of the Father. The ministry Jesus came to earth to do was not what He had done up to that point, but the death He was going to die that others may live.

Even with that Jesus said, “You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you” (John 15:3). His purpose was to die and remove our sins, but He said we were already clean because of the word that He spoke before He died. Jesus served us up to the point that He died for us, the greatest service of all, and continues to do so today. But although He had done so many signs before them, they did not believe in Him (John 12:37). The people that saw His great ministry still did not believe. Peter rebuked Jesus when He said He had to die. We do not always know or understand the work God is doing through another. But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly (Matthew 6:3-4).

What I do in the ministry that you see is not the main purpose for my life. There is a work being done in secret that only the God knows. It is the same with all of us. When someone is rewarded we look at how they appear to us, and wonder why they got it and we didn’t. We do not know what they do in secret, for the Lord and the body of Christ. We do not know or understand their ultimate purpose, just as those with Jesus did not understand His purpose until the Holy Spirit came and revealed it; after Jesus was dead, resurrected, and ascended. “Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself.” (John 12:3132). My walk is now, but the ministry is because Jesus was lifted up and the drawing is to Him that He may present us to the Father. Father, glorify Your name.

© 2008, Tim D. Coulter Sr.