The Devotional - jhn04

The Devotional

Comment: You might say that we are a well-lit nation, during the night time in most places there is enough artificial lighting that we are seldom in fear. Our automobiles are equipped with very good lighting and as well our homes, streets and various other buildings and establishments. Yet true and biblical lighting in and of itself provides two avenues of knowledge and that is where to or where not to place your steps in the physical realm of darkness and where not to place your steps in the realm of spiritual darkness. Both the physical and spiritual travels in life need LIGHT. For example we can understand the darkness of these TWO realms of reality from Proverbs 7:6-27 it is the evidence needed to travel safely regarding light and dark in both realms.

Challenge: We will focus our eyes on God’s Light, we are aware of both realms of darkness and on the physical side of light and dark our basic problem is solved with the flip of a switch. Still on the other side, there is no switch to flip and the majority of us grope constantly in the darkness. We stumble, fall and die in our spiritual darkness daily and it seems as if we have no mind to do differently. The fact is that if we do not have a focus on the Light of God we really do not have a mind to do anything else but to blindly grope around in the spiritual darkness.

John 1:6 – There was a man sent from God, whose name is John. Did you get it, this man did not do what he did out of personal desire and he was motivated by God to go and do God’s Will. This does not mean that John the Baptizer was a robot, he planned his way but it was God who directed John’s ministry and mission in life, Proverbs 16:9. Also this John is not the writer of the Gospel According to John. This John is the son of Zacharias whose mother is Elizabeth, see Luke 1:5-25. The writer of the Gospel of John was the son of Zebedee as recorded in Matthew 5:10.

John 1:6-34 reveals the man John the Baptizer and his mission, he came to be a witness for God and that is to bear proof of the Light that God is in Christ, that through believing in the Light of God, He would provide Spiritual Wisdom to rid the world of spiritual darkness. John himself was not the Light, his mission in life was simply to bear witness; that is to identify the Light of God – Jesus the Christ. Jesus is the ONLY LIGHT who can provide direction to God and His Kingdom.

Even so, Jesus was in the world, and the world was made THROUGH HIM, He is the Creator and because of spiritual darkness the world did not know or comprehend Him. This same knowledge is ongoing today, everyone knows that the biblical account of the birth and death of Jesus Christ, that it is true. Yet His own nation disowned, dishonored and destroyed Him and rejected His resurrection as false, why? Because men loved the DARKNESS rather than the LIGHT – see John 3:19. Now His nation is not alone in this, Rome did this as well and if you were there… need I say more?

Praise the LORD for His mercy to many, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right (actually, the authority) to become the children of God. While God the Father is the Creator of all mankind, not all of mankind are His children, notice John 1:12, God’s children are only those who by faith in God believe in His Name. And who are these that believe in His Name? We are those who are made alive (reborn), not of physical birth and not of blood (godly parents), nor of the will of flesh, (any physical effort to please God) and not by the will of man (forcing God to accept us). The only way for anyone to come to God is by His way, BUT OF GOD”.

The Devotional - jhn03

The Devotional

Comment: Do you remember your very first bike? I remember! My dad had returned from World War Two and he said he would get me a bicycle. My heart raced with emotion, I could not contain my thoughts and I rush to find my mom and tell her. She was excited too, but she cautioned me to be patient in that the bike may be a future present. My heart sank a little, but I had faith in my dad’s words. As Christmas grew near I saw a beat up and rusty bike in the shed out back, and as the days past my dad would spend an hour or two with me at his side repairing the bicycle. When it came time to paint it, he allowed me to do some of the painting. A rusty sort brown orange color, I was sort of unhappy with the color and explained to him that if that was to be the color, than I would have to learn to like it. He laughed but told me that from this point on I could not come with him to the shed or peek in. I followed his order to stay away. On Christmas I was given the bike, red with white stripes, it looked new and to me it was new and a very wonderful gift.

Challenge: God is love and in Him there is no darkness at all. There were some very dark periods in my life with my father, after all; he was human like the rest of us. His failures are not different than yours or mine. We are born sinners and we fail because we live in the darkness of sin and even though we love, it never comes close to the holiness of God’s love for His Created humans in the world. The gospel according to the apostle John records and reveals the love of God through His Son Jesus Christ, we will spend some joyful time looking into God’s love.

Although close to chronological, the events of John’s gospel revolve around the seven miracles that Jesus did during His earthly ministry. The miracles were not done to glorify the man Jesus, but they were done to prove that God who is Jesus manifested in the flesh is the same GOD and always will be the “I AM” as recorded by Moses in Exodus 3:13-15. Remember that John was an eyewitness and a very close companion and friend of our LORD, just as was Moses. 

So we will see the evidence of Father God in Christ, Deity in a sinless human body, we will see this from the account of another EYEWITNESS, the Holy Spirit who is the third Person of the Godhead. God by His love for you and me is preparing to fulfill His full plan for us at a future date. We are able to help Him at times with the preparation and fulfillment of this gift, yet there are many things unknown or better put, kept secret until the final hour, also understood as the Day of the LORD. Like John we too are witnesses of the majesty of Jesus Christ. His sinless life of His love, His sacrifice, His resurrection and His eternal Plan.

In 3 John 1:10 – we read, “He who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself; he who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of His Son. Let us not keep this “good news” a secret any longer. Let your voice herald the Truth. This is the message which we have heard (and believed) from Him, (therefore) we declare that; God is Love and in Him is no darkness at all. 1 John 1:5 a personal adaptation.

The Devotional - jhn02

The Devotional

Comment: Everything known to man has a beginning, now why is that so hard for people to understand when it comes to Creation. Men and women with credentials have pushed the forming of the earth to billions of years ago. According to Jack Hills of Western Australia the earth is at “least” 4.404 billion years old, give or take .005 billion years. For me with a simple mind I think of how hard it is to count the sand grains on just one East Coast seashore, so why then does a man waste his life seeking to understand that which is impossible to “do!” There is only one answer; mankind of this sort simply “hate” God and they hate to take God at HIS Word. Thus we can say that God has a wrathful revelation for this sort of human thinking – find yourself a Bible and read Romans 1:18-32 as we will develop this more in the days ahead.

Challenge: John 1:1-5 – In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. What beginning is this one might ask John who is the disciple and apostle of Jesus Christ?

Later in the life of this same apostle, he penned these words of 1 John 1:1-4 – That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched--this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete.

Yet again when he was commanded by the LORD Jesus, John was to confirm the message of Creation with this statement in the book of Revelation. “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the End.” Says the LORD GOD. “Who IS and who WAS and who IS TO COME, the Almighty.” 

Men and women who reject Creation are men and women who reject GOD the Almighty CREATOR, these people cannot understand ten simple words. “IN THE BEGINNING GOD CREATED THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH” Genesis 1:1. Now some might say that it is commendable that they do not understand and have sought the ways and means discredit the Creator. But honestly it is condemnable since the message of evolution leads to meaningless of life as the professors of this sort of wisdom promotes foolishness.

What is foolishness? Lust in the heart, dishonoring the human body, changing the truth of God into a lie, the worship of the creature rather than the worship of the Creator. Think on what foolishness you might be involved in by agreeing with evolution and tell me, do you not know that you are playing the FOOL? Oh yes, you do know. The earth is the LORD’s and those who are in it, all peoples and all living things belong to God and one day soon that at the name of JESUS who IS the Creator will be heard these words.

Philippians 2:9-11 – Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

There are couple of reasons why this will happen and one of them is that the earth was created by Jesus ten to fourteen thousand years ago, this is not the end of a story. It is the truth and it is believable by FAITH, FAITH in God, not man.