Responding to Jesus

 

 

READ John 1-4

When I became a Christian, my sister told me to read John’s gospel five times, then the book of Romans twice. Prior to that, I’d read the Bible for years, but without understanding it. This was the first thing that God helped me understand:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:1–6)

Even though many deny it or debate it, and one of the cults puts “a god” in the first sentence without knowing there is not an ‘a’ in the Greek language, I know this is true; Jesus is God.

What follows deeply convinces me that John had it right. Those who believe it experience a great change — God gives them the right (meaning authority) to become His children (John 1:12–13) through what Jesus later calls a new birth. But before that, John explains much more about the identity of Jesus. He says, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth”  and “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.” (John 1:14,18)

This Jesus is God in human flesh. The Father is God, the Son is God, and later he will write about the Holy Spirit who is God. No wonder John said, “I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know, even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie . . .  And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.” (John 1:26–27, 34)

Soon Jesus gets to work. He calls the first disciples, then does a sign that reveals His power and affirms His identity — He turns water into wine. From there He went into the temple and drove out the money-changers who had invaded this place of worship instead of staying outside where they were allowed.

The Jews questioned everything Jesus did. He told them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” speaking about the temple of his body. They didn’t get it nor did the disciples until after He rose from the dead. Little wonder that Jesus did not entrust Himself to others at this time. He knew their hearts.

He also knew their need to be reborn, an act of God that would open their eyes and make it possible for them to enter the kingdom He would establish. He told a religious leader:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God . . . unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3, 5)

His explain further, words that are plain to those who have experienced that rebirth:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.” (John 3:16–19)

Soon Jesus repeats His invitation: “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.” (John 3:36)

Jesus takes this message of eternal life to a Samaritan woman at a well (Jewish men did not speak to women or Samaritans) and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:13–14) She responded and ran to tell others she had found the Messiah.

John then reports a second sign: Jesus heals a sick boy and his father “believed, and all his household.” (John 4:52–53)

My summary is patchy but even this quick review points to a mystery: how could anyone want to cling to sin and dismiss this incredible Man who is God who saves us from sin? He came to earth because God loves us and wants us to know Him. How can so many reject Him, even curse Him, as if He is their biggest problem? What a strange and sad reaction to a sinless and powerful Savior.

 

An appetite for living forever

 

1 Chronicles 19–20; Jonah 3; Luke 8; 1 Peter 1

Last night our Bible study small group discussed what was necessary to life before a person was saved. What would make a person choose God over sin? Was it a good family upbringing? Adam and Eve shot down that theory. Is it all up to God who is saved or not? But we are told to serve Him.

Jonah’s story is interesting. The city where God sent him to preach was large and evil. He didn’t want to go because “I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster” (4:2). Jonah believed that God would change the hearts of the Ninevites, and He did but this man didn’t like it. Finally, after the fish tossed him out . . .

Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them. (Jonah 3:4–5)

Then the word reached the king and he did the same thing, then issued a proclamation:

“By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.” When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it. (Jonah 3:7–10)

This city could have been half a million people, but whatever its size, this was an amazing event. I try to imagine the change such repentance would bring if every city (or even one city) in North America turned from evil to God. How could that happen?

In Luke, Jesus tells the parable of the sower to illustrate responses to the Word of God and the Gospel. Some are so hard of heart that they don’t even hear it. Some hear it but their response is too shallow and when their ‘faith’ is tested, they falter. Others hear it but “the cares and riches and pleasures of life” choke their growth. They are distracted and do not mature in their faith. Only a few hear, hold what they heard “in and honest and good heart” and bear fruit with patience.

These days, it is not too difficult to see lack of depth and those weeds that choke out spiritual truth. Shallow living is rampant as are concerns over life, money and pleasure. The message that Jonah took to Nineveh is not welcomed nor even heard, let alone responded to with deep concern and repentance.

What makes the difference? Nineveh was evil and repented. Our cities are filled with sinful attitudes and actions but where is the repentance? Like the parable of the sower, some believe but not cities full of people.

Peter speaks of God’s work to change lives. He says:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. (1 Peter 1:3–5)

He tells how that faith will be tested but because it is a gift from God, genuine faith passes those tests. The Bible calls this transformation a new birth that is not from “perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding Word of God” — using that term ‘rhema’ twice in reference to its permanence and to how it comes to those God sends it. Grass withers and flowers fall . . .

“ . . . but the word of the Lord remains forever. And this word is the good news that was preached to you.” (1 Peter 1:25)

Rhema could be called a personal message from God rather than a general message to the world. Hearing God speak changes human hearts.

APPLY: This rhema word is in “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” It is my ‘daily bread’ and manna from heaven. It changes the way I think and live. I seek it, ask God for it — like a baby wants milk. My life depends on what God says to me, whether my heart is needy, ornery, at rest, or hungry. I can be distracted by the cares of this world. I can resist those tests that plow up my shallow ground, but this Word is persistent and God is faithful. He feeds me new life every day. My part is to read it and feed from His generous gift.