God is a generous God. He wants to share His authority, but only with a certain kind of person: His Son, and those who are like His Son. If He were to give His authority to anyone else they would use it for things that are not His will, which means He would be assisting them to do things that are harmful. And, of course, He can never do that because He is completely good. To deviate from His will would mean that something outside His plan, outside His character, outside His goodness was being included. And that would contaminate it. If God were to answer a prayer that is misguided, or empower a person who is pursuing their own fleshly desires, or confirm a teaching that is distorted, He would be helping that person do something harmful to themselves or to someone else. And His goodness does not allow Him to do that. The ultimate proof of this is His own Son. He gave Him great authority because He loved the Father and did “exactly as the Father commanded” Him. (v31).

During that final evening, as He prepared His disciples for His departure, Jesus made enormous promises. He said His disciples would do greater miracles than He had done (Jn 14:12), and though I still find that hard to understand, that promise certainly means that God is willing to do amazing things through us. He said the Holy Spirit would come and dwell inside us and teach us “all things” (Jn 14:26). He said we would have the same kind of peace in the midst of trials that He had (Jn 14:27). He said we would “bear much fruit” (Jn 15:8), meaning we will help a lot of people find Him. He said we would be able to ask the Father for anything, and He would give it to us (Jn 16:24). He said the Father would love us and would invite us to bring our requests directly to Him (Jn 16:26, 27), and He would answer us and fill us with joy (Jn 16:24).

Those are fabulous promises! But let’s be honest, we don’t often see that kind of authority being expressed. In fact, we may only know a few people who actually fit that description. The promises themselves sound wonderful, but in practice something seems to be hindering them. There are, indeed, enough examples of God’s power in people’s lives today to prove that the promises are valid. So the problem isn’t with the promises or the God who gave them. It must lie with those of us who seldom or never see such promises being answered. There must be a missing element. But what is it? Thankfully all we have to do to find the answer is to listen carefully to what Jesus said that evening, and the answer becomes obvious: To do what Jesus did, we need a heart like Jesus had. Today, let’s listen to His heart.