M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

The way, the truth, the life

14 “Don’t let your hearts be troubled,” Jesus continued. “Trust God—and trust me, too! ² There is plenty of room to stay in my father’s house. If that wasn’t the case, I’d have told you, wouldn’t I? I’m going to get a place ready for you! ³ And if I do go and get a place ready for you, I will come back and take you to be with me, so that you can be there, where I am. ⁴ And as to where I’m going—you know the way!”

⁵ “Actually, Master,” said Thomas to him, “we don’t know where you’re going, so how can we know the way?”

⁶ “I am the way,” replied Jesus, “and the truth and the life! Nobody comes to the father except through me. ⁷ If you had known me, you would have known my father. From now on you do know him! You have seen him.”

⁸ “Just show us the father, then, Master,” said Philip to Jesus, “and that’ll be good enough for us!”

⁹ “Have I been with you for such a long time, Philip,” replied Jesus, “and still you don’t know me? Anyone who has seen me has seen the father! How can you say, ‘Show us the father’? ¹⁰ Don’t you believe that I am in the father, and the father is in me? The words I’m speaking to you, I’m not speaking on my own initiative. It’s the father, who lives within me, who is doing his own works. ¹¹ You must trust me that I am in the father and the father is in me. If not, then trust because of all the things you’ve seen done.”

Another helper

¹² “I’m telling you the solemn truth,” Jesus continued. “Anyone who trusts in me will also do the works that I’m doing. In fact, they will do greater works than these, because I’m going to the father! ¹³ And whatever you ask in my name, I will do it, so that the father may be glorified in the son. ¹⁴ If you ask anything in my name, I will do it.

¹⁵ “If you love me,” he went on, “you will keep my commands. ¹⁶ Then I will ask the father, and he will give you another helper, to be with you forever. ¹⁷ This other helper is the spirit of truth. The world can’t receive him, because it doesn’t see him or know him. But you know him, because he lives with you, and will be in you.

¹⁸ “I’m not going to leave you bereft. I am coming to you. ¹⁹ Not long from now, the world won’t see me anymore; but you will see me. Because I live, you will live too. ²⁰ On that day you will know that I am in my father, and you in me, and I in you.

²¹ “Anyone who has my commandments and keeps them—that’s the person who loves me. Anyone who loves me will be loved by my father, and I will love them and show myself to them.”

My peace I give to you

²² Judas spoke up. (This was the other Judas, not Iscariot.)

“Master,” he said, “how will it be that you will show yourself to us and not to the world?”

²³ “If anyone loves me,” Jesus replied, “they will keep my word. My father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. ²⁴ Anyone who doesn’t love me won’t keep my word. And the word which you hear isn’t mine. It comes from the father, who sent me.

²⁵ “I’ve said all this to you while I’m here with you. ²⁶ But the helper, the holy spirit, the one the father will send in my name, he will teach you everything. He will bring back to your mind everything I’ve said to you.

²⁷ “I’m leaving you peace. I’m giving you my own peace. I don’t give gifts in the way the world does. Don’t let your hearts be troubled; don’t be fearful. ²⁸ You heard that I said to you, ‘I’m going away, and I’m coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be happy that I’m going to the father—because the father is greater than me. ²⁹ And now I’ve told you before it happens, so that when it does happen, you may believe.

³⁰ “I haven’t got much more to say to you. The ruler of the world is coming. He has nothing to do with me. ³¹ But all this is happening so that the world may know that I love the father, and that I’m doing what the father has told me to do.

“Get up. Let’s be going.”

Live up to your calling!

4 So, then, this is my appeal to you—yes, it’s me, the prisoner in the Lord! You must live up to the calling you received. ² Bear with one another in love; be humble, meek and patient in every way with one another. ³ Make every effort to guard the unity that the spirit gives, with your lives bound together in peace.

⁴ There is one body and one spirit; you were, after all, called to one hope which goes with your call. ⁵ There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism; ⁶ one God and father of all, who is over all, through all and in all.

⁷ But grace was given to each one of us, according to the measure the Messiah used when he was distributing gifts. ⁸ That’s why it says,

⁹ When it says here that “he went up,” what this means is that he also came down into the lower place, that is, the earth. ¹⁰ The one who came down is the one who also “went up”—yes, above all the heavens!—so that he might fill all things.

Grown-up Christianity

¹¹ So these were the gifts that he gave. Some were to be apostles, others prophets, others evangelists, and others pastors and teachers. ¹² Their job is to give God’s people the equipment they need for their work of service, and so to build up the Messiah’s body. ¹³ The purpose of this is that we should all reach unity in our belief and loyalty, and in knowing God’s son. Then we shall reach the stature of the mature Man measured by the standards of the Messiah’s fullness.

¹⁴ As a result, we won’t be babies any longer! We won’t be thrown this way and that on a stormy sea, blown about by every gust of teaching, by human tricksters, by their cunning and deceitful scheming. ¹⁵ Instead, we must speak the truth in love, and so grow up in everything into him—that is, into the Messiah, who is the head. ¹⁶ He supplies the growth that the whole body needs, linked as it is and held together by every joint which supports it, with each member doing its own proper work. Then the body builds itself up in love.

Off with the old, on with the new

¹⁷ So this is what I want to say; I am bearing witness to it in the Lord. You must no longer behave like the Gentiles, foolish-minded as they are. ¹⁸ Their understanding is darkened; they are cut off from God’s life because of their deep-seated ignorance, which springs from the fact that their hearts are hard. ¹⁹ They have lost all moral sensitivity, and have given themselves over to whatever takes their fancy. They go off greedily after every kind of uncleanness.

²⁰ But that’s not how you learned the Messiah!— ²¹ if indeed you did hear about him, and were taught in him, in accordance with the truth about Jesus himself. ²² That teaching stressed that you should take off your former lifestyle, the old humanity. That way of life is decaying, as a result of deceitful lusts. ²³ Instead, you must be renewed in the spirit of your mind, ²⁴ and you must put on the new humanity, which is being created the way God intended it, displaying justice and genuine holiness.

The kindness that imitates God himself

²⁵ Put away lies, then. “Each of you, speak the truth with your neighbor,” because we are members of one another. ²⁶ “Be angry, but don’t sin”; don’t let the sun go down on you while you’re angry, ²⁷ and don’t leave any loophole for the devil. ²⁸ The thief shouldn’t steal any longer, but should rather get on with some honest manual work, so as to be able to share with people in need.

²⁹ Don’t let any unwholesome words escape your lips. Instead, say whatever is good and will be useful in building people up, so that you will give grace to those who listen.

³⁰ And don’t disappoint God’s holy spirit—the spirit who put God’s mark on you to identify you on the day of freedom. ³¹ All bitterness and rage, all anger and yelling, and all blasphemy—put it all away from you, with all wickedness. ³² Instead, be kind to one another, cherish tender feelings for each other, forgive one another, just as God forgave you in the Messiah.