Passage Read: John 17-18
Meditation Verse: 18:37
Thought
"Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice." Jesus isn't simply saying that only those who belong to the truth can hear what He is saying; anyone near enough to Him heard what He was saying. But not everyone who heard Him accepted and believed what He said. Jesus means here that those who are of the truth hear and accept His words as the truth. Jesus spoke to many people, but not all believed. He would often say, "He who has ears, let him hear." Everyone has ears, so everyone should hear, but not everyone believed.
Application
This tells me two things: One, I can have confidence that I belong to the truth because I care enough what Jesus said to receive it and work to do what He instructed. I believe it to be true, to be what I need to build my life on. And two, not everyone who hears Jesus' words, whether read from the Bible itself or repeated by faithful servants, will receive and believe them to be the truth, but only those who belong to the truth. Those who are chosen for salvation, those whom God has called, only these can and will receive Jesus' words as truth. No amount of arguing or debating will convince those who don't belong to the truth to believe it. It is God's Word itself, when preached, when taught, when read, that separates the saved from the unsaved, that reveals who belongs to the truth and who doesn't. It is good to be able to teach and explain why the truth is the truth, but no amount of wisdom--or miraculous signs--will bring someone to repent who does not already belong to the truth. God's Word is sufficient to save, to reveal those who believe and those who do not. All I need to do is preach and teach the truth faithfully, as given, and trust God to change a heart or not. I can and should urge people to repent and believe so as not to miss their chance to be saved, but I don't have to argue and convince them of the truth. That's the work of the Holy Spirit.