John 1 - The Word

Today I read John 1. There are a few things that particularly stuck with me.




16-18

"From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known."




Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. From this truth we are blessed again and again. Even in our sin, and our deception or perversion of truth - Jesus offers us hope and access to the Father's face through Him, through His grace and truth. Often I struggle with truth. As a child I felt moments of insanity, wondering if this was "real" life; I felt condemned in my double-mindedness. My husband can attest to the plague it caused me, it stole my very joy whenever it was present. I realized a year or so ago that the cloak of duality had been lifted off my mind. I couldn't pinpoint when or how - but God had been faithful to bring truth; THE TRUTH had saved me. Honestly it brings tears to my eyes realizing that that burden is gone. There is still a memory of the deception, in fact it covers most of my childhood memories in a mask of pain and bitterness that I know (head knowledge) wasn't really there. A great theologian and teacher of mine, explained once that we have to seek God to have our memories redeemed. that while we may be healed sometimes our memories are still drenched in the darkness - we need his TRUTH to come in and make real the grace that has always been a part of our life.




29-34




This section talks about John baptizing Jesus. In these few verses he says twice he did not recognize Jesus as the Son of God; after all they were cousins, who is going to think their cousin is the long foretold Savior? The application of this is two-fold. First our Savior can come to us in unrecognizable ways, and may very well be closer than we think. Second, give grace to the blind who can not see the Savior right in front of them. After all it is later in John where we see that, "He has blinded their eyes and deadened their hearts, so they can neither see with their eyes, nor understand with their hearts, nor turn--and I would heal them." (12:60) Rather than judge those that do not see, ask God to unveil their eyes - seek the Lord to open their hearts to the Truth.





43


"The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee, finding Philip, he said to him "Follow Me."






My husband's name is Phillip, in fact he is named after this disciple. Personally this verse means so much. Many of the disciples sought Jesus out, for Philip Jesus sought him out! My heart leaps inside of me chest at the wonder of being a sought out disciple! To my beloved, I'd say remember your namesake because you Savior will call you out as well. For the rest, its an encouragement to know our Savior proactively searches us out. He does not leave us behind, He will find us and bring us to Him.