The Gospel of John

John 3:34-36

“For he whom God has sent utters the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure. The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”

So I’ve finally made it out of Luke and walking through the gospel of John. It is probably my favorite gospel, John writes with a weight and clarity that I cannot ignore. It just amazes me how deep, rich and vibrant his words are and how directly the Spirit has revealed Christ in his gospel. At every turn John shows the nature of Christ as God the Son manifested in flesh and that he is the key to our reconciliation to the Father and that he himself is God and displays his power through “signs”. I find it interesting that John specifically uses the word ‘sign’ as the descriptor of Jesus’ miracles. They are pointers, pointers to who Jesus is and where he has come from (The Father).  Dozens of times Jesus refers to himself as the one “the Father has sent” and the people continually say back to him “what sign do you show us that you are sent from the Father?” I laugh when I think of Jesus’ internal dialog because this most often happens right after Jesus has performed a miracle. ‘What, the first sign wasn’t enough? How many more do you need before you see that I am the one sent from the Father, that I bring life, am life and all life has been entrusted to me by my Father in heaven?’ A lesser man would have given up on these slow, stiff-necked people. I know I would have.  And I know I’ve been one of those people, God have mercy upon me and my unbelief.

I guess that’s why Jesus is so beautiful to me, that he came and was obedient unto death so that he might give us life through his blood and present us as brothers, heirs of the kingdom, holy and blameless, before the Father all the while, as Paul says, “we were yet still sinners.” What glorious news!!! That his blood covers me and continues to cover me, that his mercy is daily renewed in my life and each day I am given the opportunity to realign myself to Christ by the help of the Spirit and give glory to the Father by the fruit of my life.

Another thing I just wanted to linger on for a moment, and this is what my quotation from John 3:34-36 is based around. “The wrath of God remains on him.” This part is a fragment of the depth of John 3. I think it is here that we very clearly see in the teachings of Jesus of our total depravity before God. We are under God’s wrath, we are living out the curse of God established in Genesis 3 at the Fall. And nothing we have done up to the present time has ever been enough to satisfy that wrath. We will be judged as lawbreakers before the Father and our only punishment is Hell. Christ came to offer himself as the propitiation for our just punishment in order to bring us to life and present us as blameless and good at the judgment. John 3 speaks a lot about the sin condition how “the light has come into the world” but we cannot come to the light because our hearts hate the light and will be exposed for what we are in it. We are dead in sin, Christ purchases our lives with his own and makes us brothers with him if we believe in his name.

I pray that going into Holy Week we will all consider ourselves as we are without Christ. Bent, broken, evil and wicked in the light of the Father. We deserve death, but God has made a way to give us life and that is through the life of his Son, Jesus. And Jesus paid the price for our sins on the cross. He was then raised to life so that those who have been called by the Father have died to sin and risen to life with Jesus.  Holy Spirit I just pray that you will be with all of us this week, teaching us and moving us closer to Christ, that we may fall on our feet and worship him, claim him as our only hope and salvation, give glory to the Father for his amazing grace and love and seek to walk in the way of Christ, pursuing righteousness and letting the strength of Christ uphold us.

Psalm 103:

¹ Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and all that is within me,
bless his holy name!
² Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits,
³who forgives all your iniquity,
who heals all your diseases,
⁴who redeems your life from the pit,
who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
⁵who satisfies you with good
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

⁶The LORD works righteousness
and justice for all who are oppressed.
⁷He made known his ways to Moses,
his acts to the people of Israel.
⁸The LORD is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
⁹ He will not always chide,
nor will he keep his anger forever.
¹⁰He does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities.
¹¹For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
¹²as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
¹³As a father shows compassion to his children,
so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him.
¹⁴For he knows our frame;
he remembers that we are dust.

¹⁵As for man, his days are like grass;
he flourishes like a flower of the field;
¹⁶for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
and its place knows it no more.
¹⁷But the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him,
and his righteousness to children’s children,
¹⁸to those who keep his covenant
and remember to do his commandments.
¹⁹The LORD has established his throne in the heavens,
and his kingdom rules over all.

²⁰Bless the LORD, O you his angels,
you mighty ones who do his word,
obeying the voice of his word!
²¹Bless the LORD, all his hosts,
his ministers, who do his will!
²² Bless the LORD, all his works,
in all places of his dominion.
Bless the LORD, O my soul!

Happy Easter!!! Be blessed!!!

the Word is Truth

John 17:17

“Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.”

Luke 21:4

“For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”

Confession: last night was the first time I had read my Bible in almost a week. A whole week where I was not being encountered by the Spirit and living in the thoughts and deeds of the Almighty. A whole week that I was not moving closer to Jesus, sitting at his feet, taking up the good portion of his word that I might have a “spring welling up inside that brings eternal life.” This morning I listened to a sermon by John Piper about the necessity of having the Word of God in your head and heart and it really hit me like a ton of bricks. He said something to this effect, “Satan is the god of this world, and the world is defenseless against him. AND HE HATES US!!! He hates everything in this world and that the only reason we haven’t perished, that the sun comes up and the world holds together is because God in his mercy sustains it and keeps it working so that we might live and come to know his Son, Jesus.” So if we have no defense against the devil, how then do we protect ourselves? With the Word of God. 1 John 2:14 says,

“I write to you, fathers,because you know him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men,because you are strong,and the word of God abides in you,and you have overcome the evil one.”

Our protection lies in the Word of God so that we can deny the evil because our hope and trust is in Christ. Christ himself shielded himself against the devil with Scripture, so must we. Therefore, Piper wisely points out that we need to know the Scripture, not only to protect ourselves from the evil of this world, but also to live in fellowship with God. How can we know Him, know Jesus if we aren’t engaging them in the Word?  How does the Spirit work in us if we aren’t submitting ourselves to the truth? Colossians 3:16-17 says,

“¹⁶Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. ¹⁷And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

So the Spirit works in us through the Word, teaching, admonishing and conforming us to Christ. By conforming our minds to the mind of God that He has richly revealed in Scripture we can know Him, trust Him, be faithful and obedient in His commands and develop a love and security in Jesus that leads us to greater sanctification by the Spirit. I pray everyday that God would give me a hunger for His word, because I have been living in spiritual anorexia the last week, and it shows in my walk with Christ. May God humble me and make me lean on His word and His promises everyday, may Christ be my portion forever. AMEN!

Believe it or not, this leads into the second Scripture I posted on top, Luke 21:3; most people will see this passage as how to give of their money. And I believe that is true, and is something I really need to work on and repent of, because I don’t give of my money like I should, but I’m trying to seek a stillness and reliance on Christ that will allow me to give joyfully and sacrifically. No, the main thing I read here is the absolute sufficiency we need to have in the glory of Christ. Do I trust him? Is he my treasure? Will I bow before his puctured feet and worship him and seek his glory above all things? Is he the living water that I subsist on? Can I give up everything I am, everything I own, everything I hope to be, everything I depend on for security and life and make Christ my life? The widow gives EVERYTHING SHE HAS TO LIVE ON because she trusts God, she knows that the world around her is meaningless and futile and all will come back to the dust of the earth. What then does she cling to? She clings to the promises of God that says, “He who believes in me will never die, but inherit enternal life.” So who cares about money, success, emminence among your peers when compared to the riches that God is preparing for those who love his Son? May I never be set in the world, let Christ be my portion that I may live and know God and the mighty wonders he has prepared at the feast of the Lamb, glory be to the One who was slain!!! AMEN!

Patience

James 5:7-8

⁷Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. ⁸You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.

I’ve been reflecting on patience a lot these last few days. It’s been hard because I’ve been riding this high since coming to Christ and my joy and satisfaction has been like a dam that has broken and has overflown into the floodplain. But all the turbulence and exuberance has begun to smooth out as equilibrium settles in and now I find that now I need to start being active and disciplined in faith. That in and of itself is hard for me, I’ve never been that patient of a person. I’m very much a creature of our american fast food culture to where I want everything to be delivered post-haste. Why can’t sanctification have the option of next-day shipping? But I find that the more time in Scripture I spend, the more the idea of patience, long suffering and toil are very much a part of the process. That’s a hard pill for me to swallow.

And this carries into my life outside my personal relationship with Christ. The good side of it is that God has given me a zeal for the Word of God and to see others come to know Him and find their best fulfillment in Him. But, I want it to happen quickly. Or, I learn something about the nature of God and have a great joy in it and want to share it with those who do not know Him, or just aren’t that far in their understanding and so the conversation doesn’t fulfill me because they can’t go as deep into the text as I can and adapt it as quickly as I do. This is a great burden to me, but also is an internal rebuke to myself because why should I expect everything to happen immediately? Didn’t God use the last 28 years of my life to bring me to Christ? Nearly three decades He worked on me, suffered patiently with me in order that I may receive Christ gladly, broken and meek before the throne of Christ.He bought me for His glory, not mine and in the end I bring nothing to the table. But out of sheer mercy He called me into His presence so that I might know Him, glorify Him in everything I do and seek Him in patience as a farmer waits patiently for the crops to grow for harvest.

Like I said, it’s a hard pill to swallow, to humble myself and submit to the hard work of sanctification and allowing God to work in His perfect timing and according to His perfect plan of redemption. But in this, I can take assurance in the fact that He is working in me to be eternally minded and reminding me that He is in control. Not me. Not ever me. But He will complete the work that He started in me and in the others who are in my prayers, because He is above all things faithful, and He will do it for the Glory of His name! God be praised, I must be patient and wait on the Lord to fulfill His promises!

Grace and Peace

So what is this site all about? It is my attempt to write about and reflect on the journey of a servant Jesus Christ, myself. I hope that the words within will encourage you and strengthen you in your search for true joy and the end of your life’s pursuit: to “In all your ways acknowledge God, and He will make straight your paths.” Psalms 3:6

Grace and Peace to you all and may the fullness of Christ be granted to you in the mercy of the Father to bring about true repentance and humble longing for His Word.

-Brett