The chapter continues by the Gentiles wishing to see Jesus and asking Philip if they could see Him. Jesus said that the time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified and exalted. Jesus spoke prophetically and called things forth even though it may not have made sense to the disciples. Often time when we hear prophetic words they won’t make sense with what is going on in the natural, but that’s the whole point. The prophetic is the word from God that calls forth His will into action. God tells His prophets His plans, and then the prophets will share with the body on God’s perfect timing. Jesus then prophesied His fleshly death which confused the people. They didn’t understand how He was eternal yet about to be lifted up.
We often times miss the message in prophetic words because we interpret wrong, we tend to interpret things off the current knowledge and wisdom we have which might not be enough to correctly interpret the word given in that moment. Thankfully we have the Holy Spirit to guide us and help us to understand interpretations of prophetic words.
Jesus is the light in the darkness and those who follow Him will stay in His light and glory. To follow Him we have to beleive and trust in Him, we need to stay out of doubt. After all the miracles He performed some still doubted and had disbelief. Even though the light was right in front of them, some couldn’t see it. We have to be open to receive Jesus and we have to surrender fully to Him. We have to choose Him above all else to be in His light and stay in His light. The moment we lose focus of Him and intimacy with Him, our light dims and it slowly begins to get dark. The dark wants to devour those who beleive. The enemy wants to pull believers into distractions and being busy in hopes to dim His light in them. God will never force us to stay in communion with Him, we have to choose to fight to stay in His light. We do this by spending time with Him, reading His word, worshiping Him and continuously surrending to Jesus in all things with every knew opportunity that arises to surrender.
Verse 42 says that there were pharisees who believed Jesus was the Song of God yet they wouldn’t confess it out of fear that they would be rejected and kicked out of the synagogue. They feared losing their approval and stature that the synagogue provided them, they weren’t willing to surrender. We need to do more than believe, we need to surrender. Anyone who believes and trusts in Jesus will no longer live in darkness, they will live in light. When we trust in Jesus our actions will show it, we will show a life that is surrendered; we have to choose.
Even Jesus had a choice, HE states that the words He spoke were not on His own initiative or authority but the Father Himself who sent Jesus. He had to choose to say what the Father said and not say anything else. He had to choose to execute the will of God, He wasn’t forced to do it. God never forces anything to do anything, everyone always has free choice.