“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who receives whomever I send receives Me; and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me.” John 13:20

Ambassadorship befits those who follow Jesus—implicitly. We carry this responsibility because of our association with Him—really, whether we want to or not. John, many years before recording Jesus’ words here, had heard them first hand in the Upper Room with his very own ears. He writes as a personal eye-witness, as he does in his first epistle, “… what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ (1 John 1:3).

In this scene, etched as it were deeply in his memory and after years of reflection, Jesus summarizes the core truth presented earlier in this gospel account: “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name…” (John 1:12). As children of God, we “receivers” of Christ now represent Him, similar to how a child represents his family. And this representation has a direct linear path: he who receives us as followers of Christ, essentially receives Christ, which means they receive God, the one who commissioned Christ.

Now what does it mean for someone to receive me, a Christ-follower? We understand this to refer to a person receiving my message of Christ that I share with them. In receiving me, they accept the message that I communicate by my words and my life, the Good News of Christ. This of course assumes I have genuinely received Christ, as John 1:12 explains, and therefore am genuinely a child of God. So someone receiving me means they are receiving a child of a God and what I stand for. This puts that person in line with John 1:12, and thereby he can also become a “receiver” of Christ, and a child of God. And by receiving Christ, they are receiving God Himself.

The importance of this cannot be missed, Jesus introduces this with, “Truly, truly.” Believers are critical to the propagation of the message of Christ, and the Lord wants His Upper Room audience to understand this foundational principle of the Great Commission. Again, the disciples won’t understand this until after the resurrection, when Jesus would no longer be physically present with them. Only then would it make sense why it is significant for people to receive believers. Because that is how they will know about Christ. That is how they will come to know Christ.

Lord, I want to be an effective testimony for You so that others might come to receive You as I have.