“the glory of the one and only Son”
Here’s our word for the day – “THE GLORY OF THE ONE AND ONLY SON”. Take time to reflect further on what these words mean to you. I’ve shared my on thoughts, now meditate on what God is telling you through this verse and John 1:1.
“AND THE WORD WAS GOD”
Now we look at the final statement in John 1:1 – “AND THE WORD WAS GOD”. Let’s put this verse together: “IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD” – “AND THE WORD WAS WITH GOD” – “AND THE WORD WAS GOD”. Today I want us to dwell on the progression of the statements in John 1:1:
“IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD” – It always was, it always is, and always will be.
“AND THE WORD WAS WITH GOD” – The co-existence we studied yesterday.
“AND THE WORD WAS GOD” – The oneness of the spirit.
I’m excited to have our new members join our journey with us! As I said last night, if you will take time each day to meditate on the portion of the verse we study each day, you will place the verse on your heart and you will have committed a new verse of God’s Word to memory. Use these words to replace any negative thoughts or worries during the day. We have about sixteen weeks left in 2016, so we should learn sixteen verses by January 1st.
Along the way, if God speaks to you about a particular verse, use the comment option below to share it with us. As I have said before, I sure haven’t figured it all out yet, and I’m learning along the way with you.
“AND THE WORD WAS WITH GOD”
Today we look at the next part of the verse – “AND THE WORD WAS WITH GOD”. We have a conjunctive word “AND” at the beginning, tying the previous part of the verse – “IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD AND THE WORD WAS WITH GOD”. The word “and” may not be particularly riveting, but in this sentence I get excited! The “and” clearly implies that the Word or the spirit of Jesus was always with God, even at the “beginning” (Genesis 1:1). It foundationally lays out the Father and the Son were there together in the creation of the heavens and the earth.
As we learned in Romans 12:2 – “BUT BE TRANSFORMED BY THE RENEWING OF YOUR MIND”, our daily focus, even if only for a few minutes, on these words is transforming us. God reveals Himself through these words and we glean a deeper understanding of His perfection, His perfect love for us, and a greater sense of our purpose in serving Him. If these words speak to you, as they have to me, I encourage you to embrace what you hear God speaking to you and begin to walk it out in your daily life. You are a bright light to me and a blessing to me. Share that light with the people in your life and be a blessing. If this Bible verse study has been a positive part of your day, do you know others who would also benefit from learning God’s word? If so, share the link to this site. I hope we can begin adopting a new mindset -“We will leave no one behind.”
John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
John 1:14 “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
We are staying in the Gospel of John for our next verses; John 1:1 and John 1:14. The opening of the Book of John is nothing short of magnificent! I would love for us to commit the first 18 verses to memory, but I want us to keep moving through the Bible. So I encourage you to read the first 18 verses of John to appreciate the power of God’s word in the verses we are going to focus on over the next few days.
The Bible is an incredible tapestry of stories and individual verses that allow us to explore the individual weaves of the fabric that take us deeper and deeper into the wonder of God. We are now going down a strand of the fabric from Jesus’s declaration in John 14:6 to a deeper understanding of the essence of Christ.
Let’s begin our study and memorization with the opening of John 1:1 – “In the beginning was the Word”. Pray over these words today. Any coincidence to the words “In the beginning”? I know you are way ahead of me here, but take time to let those words soak into your soul.
John 14:6 “I AM THE WAY AND THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE. NO ONE COMES TO THE FATHER EXCEPT THROUGH ME.”
Today we wrap up our focus and memorization of John 14:6. My post over the weekend failed to post, and I think it was God’s will for me to take more time in my own reflection and especially the last sentence from Jesus in this verse – “NO ONE COMES TO THE FATHER EXCEPT THROUGH ME.”
If you haven’t figured it out yet, there are a lot of people searching for God, and there are a lot of religions in the world who claim they are the true faith and true belief in a god or gods. Walk through Barnes & Noble and you will find an exhaustive section of New Age/New Spirituality books. Believe me, Barnes & Noble wouldn’t carry all those books unless people were not buying them. There are also those who propose we should just ‘coexist’ as all religions ultimately lead us to God. That is simply not the case. As I have said before, I sure haven’t figured it all out by any means, but here are my thoughts on John 14:6:
Jesus says the only way to the Father, the only way for us to know God and the essence of His love for us is through Him. It is NOT a sign that Christianity is an “exclusive” religion. This is a gross misinterpretation. To the contrary, Jesus is showing the path for those who are seeking to connect with God. Through Christ, we see the essence of God and His love, something our human mind simply cannot comprehend. Through Christ, we are given the path to reconciliation with God and the path to a relationship with the Father.
This is again fundamental to our Christian walk. The great commission resonates in these words. Christianity is NOT an exclusive club. It is incumbent upon us who know the truth to share it with the lost. We just need to understand that ‘the lost’ are not simply people caught up in sin and addictions. The lost includes a lot of people searching for God, they are just misplaced in their search. Many Hollywood celebrities have and are ‘promoting’ their new found spirituality through books, talk shows, and reality TV. This new found spirituality takes many forms; Tom Cruise’s faith is attached to a book written by a man in the 1950’s, the musician Sting chronicles an “out-of-body” experience he and his wife had while drinking a concoction during a tribal spiritual service in Brazil, Oprah has apparently become a devotee of Depak Chopra and his reconstituted spirituality of combining Eastern religions with New Age, “it’s all about me” thinking. They are lost and tragically they are leading many people they influence down a lost road as well.
You are going to be challenged over the next few years about your Christian faith and why you believe it is the truth. We are going to explore this together in our Bible Verse Study. You have been blessed to have the Christian foundation you have been given thus far. Don’t be lead astray. Don’t let the media, celebrities or others influence you away from your faith as I was over 30 years ago. Instead, I encourage you to be the influence to bring them lovingly to the truth of Jesus Christ and the redemption of the Cross.
Happy Monday! Jim
“AND THE LIFE”
“I AM THE WAY AND THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE.” What did Jesus mean when He stated He is the life? Reflect on this today. I would love to get some feedback from some of you.
I hope you have a great Friday and awesome weekend!!!
Jim
John 14:6 “I AM THE WAY AND THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE. NO ONE COMES TO THE FATHER EXCEPT THROUGH ME.”
Today we look at the next descriptive statement from Christ – “AND THE TRUTH”. It would only be a few hours later on the next day that Pilate confronts Jesus in John 18:37 “You are a king, then!” said Pilate. Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” Here’s Pilate face-to-face with the one person who could tell him all about the truth, and Pilate responds (John 18:38), “What is truth?”
The world contends there are no truths and certainly no absolute truth. It is a convenient approach as it allows anyone to define their own truth. Without absolute truth we cannot function long as a civilization. I hope you will take a few minutes today to reflect on these words from Jesus.
Let’s set the scene. The disciples are gathered around Jesus having just finished the Passover feast; The Last Supper. Jesus has washed the disciples feet. He tells them the time is near and that He will be leaving them. This launches a fury of questions from the disciples asking where he was going, and Peter stating he will follow Jesus anywhere.
Finally, Thomas asks Jesus (John 14:5), “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
Jesus responds (John 14:6), “I AM THE WAY AND THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE. NO ONE COMES TO THE FATHER EXCEPT THROUGH ME.”
This is our new verse. It is a foundational verse to our Christian faith and important for us to place on our hearts. Tying it back to our last verse, Romans 12:2, this statement from Jesus is at the core of “being transformed by the renewing of your mind”. Our transformation begins by our spiritual understanding that Jesus is our path to the Father, that Jesus is the absolute truth, and that through Him we have the abundant life that supersedes “the pattern of this world”.
Let’s prayerful consider the first statement today – “I AM THE WAY”. Place yourself with the disciples as you reflect on these words. They have spent every moment with Jesus for the past three years. He was their teacher. He was their friend. And they had come to understand that He was their Messiah! Now He has told them He is going to depart from them, and they had no idea what was going to happen over the next twenty-four hours. How would you react to Jesus’s statement, “I AM THE WAY”? What does this say to you and your life? Your life and my life are comprised of every decision that we have made or has been made for us to this point. Those decisions are reflected in the ‘way’ or path we have chosen in how we live our life. As teens, you are in a stage of life where you will begin making more and more of your own decisions. Reflect on how these words impact the decisions you make and the path you choose.
God's Word for Fuel 