recentchristian

On Thursday, February 19, 2015 I finished reading the Gospel of John for the first time ever.  What an incredible experience.  OMGosh … if I had of known just how vibrantly rich the text was, I would have read it a lot sooner (if I had of read it sooner, I’m guessing it wouldn’t have had such a huge impact on me).  All in God’s perfect timing.

I had trouble putting this Gospel down.  I finished reading it on my electronic Bible (I read my electronic Bible on my way to work) and also in my paper Bible (I read this at home, armed with a highlighter) yesterday.  Reading it twice at the same time helps to make it stick.

I had finished reading Genesis and Exodus just before reading John.  My Pastor asked me what I would be starting next and I said I was thinking of reading Leviticus.  He asked if I had read any of the gospels (lol – I didn’t know that the gospels are in the New Testament and are the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) and I told him I hadn’t.  So, he suggested that I read the Gospel of John.  I am so thankful that he suggested reading John.  I would have possibly still been (happily) reading Leviticus – I started reading Leviticus today and it’s a tad bit heavier reading than John.

I was thrilled and stunned at just how rich the Gospel of John was … there are so many layers to the text.  Full of words of Trinity, God’s providence, grace, election, being born again, etc. … all of that plus eight miracles and many metaphors told by Jesus!  Truly inspiring.

So much ground was covered in this Gospel and there were so many verses that I love in this Gospel … here are a few that reached out and gently caressed my heart a bit more than the other verses:

John 3:16-17:  “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”

John 3:19-20:  “… Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.  Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.”

John 5:24:  “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.”

John 6:37-40:  “All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.  For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.  For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”

John 20:29:  “Then Jesus told him, ‘because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’”

As I read the gospel of John, my attitude towards the miracles was “oh, there’s another one – he’s doing it again.”  It seemed like nothing out of the ordinary to be reading that Jesus was “at it again” performing miracles.  I don’t say that in a way that says the miracles aren’t important because they are, they are all a part of Jesus’s identity.

I may be a different case.  Prior to becoming a Christian just over a year ago, I was getting many of my big questions answered through reading parts of Wayne Grudem’s book Systematic Theology so I read the Gospel of John with some of the learnings from Grudem’s book.

The eight miracles performed by Jesus that are talked of in the Gospel of John – I don’t know if I would have believed the whole “turning water into wine” thing or the other miracles a few years ago.  Now, I have an absolute, unswaying belief in this miracle and the other miracles.  This believe is a head and a heart belief … I truly get it.

Here’s why:  God created absolutely everything (that’s an all-inclusive everything) so, since he created everything, he can do whatever he wishes with everything that he created.  This includes turning water into wine or any of the other miracles that Jesus performed in the Gospel of John.  The presupposition here is that the Trinity is made up of Father God, Jesus and Holy Spirit.

I finished reading the Gospel of John while at work on lunch yesterday.  It was all I could do to hold back the tears.  If I were home reading it, I would have had tears gently streaming down my cheeks.

I pray that the Bible continues to move all of us in deep ways and that it continues to speak to our hearts and pulls us into a closer, loving relationship with God.