January 23. Go directly to God.

In that day, you will ask in my name, and I do not say to you that I will ask the Father

on your behalf for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed

that I came from God. John 16, 26 through 27. Don't make God's Son more of a mediator than he is.

Jesus says, I do not say that I will ask the Father on your behalf. In other words, I'm not going

to insert myself between you and the Father as though you can't go to Him directly. Why?

Because the Father Himself loves you, this is astonishing.

Jesus is warning us not to think of God Almighty as unwilling to receive us directly into His presence.

By directly, I mean what Jesus meant when He said, I am not going to take your requests to God for you.

You may take them directly. He loves you. He wants you to come. He is not angry at you.

It is absolutely true that no sinful human being has any access to the Father except through Jesus

blood. He brews 10, 19 through 20. He intercedes for us now. Romans 8, 34. He brews 7, 25.

He is our advocate with the Father now for John 21. He is our high priest before the throne of God.

Now he brews 4, 15 through 16. He said, no one comes to the Father except through me, John 14,

16. Yes, but Jesus is protecting us from taking His intercession too far.

I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf for the Father Himself loves you.

Jesus is there. He is providing an ever-present, ever-living witness to the removal of the Father's wrath from us.

But He is not there to talk for us, or to keep us at a distance from the Father,

or to suggest that the Father's heart is guarded toward us or disinclined to us.

Hence the words, because the Father Himself loves you. So come, come boldly, he brews 4, 16, come

expectantly, come expecting a smile, come trembling with joy, not dread. Jesus is saying,

I have made a way to God. Now I am not going to get in the way. Come.

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