Gospel Journey: Part 2
I'm continuing my journey through John's gospel. A few verses really got into my spirit today.
After Jesus heals the man who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years he said, "Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you." I think miracles raise the stakes. More power always requires more holiness and more holiness always results in more power.
John 5:19 says, "The Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing." Verse 20 says, "The Father loves the son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these." I wrote in the margin of my bible the words "prophetic pictures." I'm praying the Holy Spirit will help me traffic in the prophetic. I think the most powerful preaching has a prophetic edge to it. I'm always asked God to use me to speak timeless truth and timely truth. There is nothing like the right word spoken in the right way at the right time. So I'm praying for prophetic words and prophetic pictures. I want to see what God is doing just like Jesus.
I've read it before, but I've never really stopped to think about the implications of John 6:21. The disciples had rowed their boat about three miles across the lake in the middle of the night when Jesus caught up with them walking on the water. And it says he got in the boat and "immediately the boat reached the shore where they were headed." This is one of those passages that is a mircrocosm on life. We're all trying to get to the other side of the lake. There is a strong headwind blowing and the water is getting rough. We row until our muscles ache because we're trying to get their in our own strength. But if we'd just let Jesus get in the boat he could get us where he wants us to go in no time. And I mean that literally. That is precisely what happens. What a powerful picture of what happens when we give Jesus the helm. So I guess the moral of the story is: don't just row, row, row your boat.
One last thought. Many of the people wouldn't accept Jesus as the Son of God but they rejected him for the wrong reasons. John 7:27 says they didn't accept Jesus because they knew where he was from. And it says, "When the Messiah comes, no one will know where he is from." How tragic. They missed the opporutnity of a lifetime. They missed the opportunity of eternity because of one little misconception--they thought that no one would know where the Messiah would come from. Where did they get that from? The prophet Micah clearly stated that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. If they'd done a little research it would have cleared up their misconception. It's the little misconceptions that keep us from experiencing everything God has for us!
After Jesus heals the man who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years he said, "Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you." I think miracles raise the stakes. More power always requires more holiness and more holiness always results in more power.
John 5:19 says, "The Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing." Verse 20 says, "The Father loves the son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these." I wrote in the margin of my bible the words "prophetic pictures." I'm praying the Holy Spirit will help me traffic in the prophetic. I think the most powerful preaching has a prophetic edge to it. I'm always asked God to use me to speak timeless truth and timely truth. There is nothing like the right word spoken in the right way at the right time. So I'm praying for prophetic words and prophetic pictures. I want to see what God is doing just like Jesus.
I've read it before, but I've never really stopped to think about the implications of John 6:21. The disciples had rowed their boat about three miles across the lake in the middle of the night when Jesus caught up with them walking on the water. And it says he got in the boat and "immediately the boat reached the shore where they were headed." This is one of those passages that is a mircrocosm on life. We're all trying to get to the other side of the lake. There is a strong headwind blowing and the water is getting rough. We row until our muscles ache because we're trying to get their in our own strength. But if we'd just let Jesus get in the boat he could get us where he wants us to go in no time. And I mean that literally. That is precisely what happens. What a powerful picture of what happens when we give Jesus the helm. So I guess the moral of the story is: don't just row, row, row your boat.
One last thought. Many of the people wouldn't accept Jesus as the Son of God but they rejected him for the wrong reasons. John 7:27 says they didn't accept Jesus because they knew where he was from. And it says, "When the Messiah comes, no one will know where he is from." How tragic. They missed the opporutnity of a lifetime. They missed the opportunity of eternity because of one little misconception--they thought that no one would know where the Messiah would come from. Where did they get that from? The prophet Micah clearly stated that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. If they'd done a little research it would have cleared up their misconception. It's the little misconceptions that keep us from experiencing everything God has for us!
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