Grace Anglican Church Gastonia, NC Fr. Jeremiah Caughran

On Trinity Sunday, Jonathan Wells, a member of Grace Anglican, gave us a teaching on the Trinity as revealed throughout Scripture and the importance of how God has revealed himself to our salvation.
Image: Holy Trinity, picture by Lawrence OP. License: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 DEED Image Location: https://www.flickr.com/photos/paullew/3600731119

The Spirit’s coming was the fulfillment of Jesus’ promises to his disciples and a fulfillment of Old Testament Prophecy. His work sets believers in Jesus apart from the world and changes them from the inside out. He unites us to one another and to Jesus himself that we might know the redemption that has been accomplished for us.
Image: Descent of the Holy Spirit, by Paul Gustave Dore’s for La Grande Bible de Tours. Internet Archive Book Images, No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons. For more info on this and other illustrations see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_Dor%C3%A9%27s_illustrations_for_La_Grande_Bible_de_Tours#The_New_Testament Image location: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Bible_panorama,_or_The_Holy_Scriptures_in_picture_and_story_(1891)_(14598407958).jpg

Jesus spent time in deep prayer for his disciples and all those who will come to believe in Christ through their word. What does this prayer reveal to us about he work of Jesus after his ascension? We see through his words that he knew he would ascend and that he would continue to present us to the Father that we might be washed and sanctified in the truth of God.

Image: The Ascension of Christ, Pietro Perugino, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

As Jesus continued to teach the disciples on the night he was betrayed, he told them to abide in his love that he had from them that flowed out of the love of the Father for himself. When we do this, we will discover that we want to keep his commandments and when we keep his commandments, we discover that we are more deeply abiding in his love.
Image: Patchy Grass by Andrew. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED, no changes made. Image location: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nez/2428875105/in/photostream/.

Jesus tells us that if we love him, we will keep his commandments. What are we to make of this statement of his? Does it mean that our salvation is because of our good deeds? Or are these words his way of showing us how to realign and calibrate our lives to the salvation we have received by faith? Father Jeremiah helps us understand Jesus’ calling today.
Image: By Tobias Aeppli. Free to use. image location: https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-holding-compass-in-forest-1125272/

Jesus calls himself the good shepherd. What kind of claim is this? How does he reflect an earthly shepherd and how does he surpass that to be something greater by the same name?
Image: The Parable of the Good Shepherd, Pieter Brueghel the Elder, Public Domain. Image location: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Parable_of_the_Good_Shepherd_MET_DP818250.jpg