Week 12 ~ Readings in John's Gospel

JESUS IS ALIVE!

Intro: The tomb is empty! Jesus, the One Who consistently showed us the Father through His life on earth, has risen from the dead. Now, in the days before He ascends to His Father, He continues to show the Father's character and love to His disciples. The men and women who knew and loved Jesus are now fearful, desolate and grief-stricken, not understanding what has happened to their hopes that Jesus is the promised Messiah. But the risen Jesus appears to them on several occasions, transforming their sadness into joy, demonstrating His Father's love, care, compassion and power. Let's ask the Lord to make Himself this real to us as we read on.

                        He is still saying "Come and see"!

Day 1: John 20:11-18

            "Jesus said to her, 'Mary!'" Mary is sobbing so profusely that she doesn't recognise she is seeing angels in the empty tomb, and then she thinks that Jesus is the gardener! But He speaks her name. Here is the risen living Jesus, walking and talking – His voice recognisable to Mary when He calls her name! Jesus is alive! He calls us by name and we are precious to Him as Mary was! Look at Mark 16:9-11.

                  Isaiah 43:1 says: "Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;

                                                 I have called you by name; you are Mine!"

                  Jesus has spoken of His Father 110 times so far in John, but has always called Him, "My Father" or THE Father"- NOW He says to Mary,   

                 "YOUR Father!" Jesus has finished the work of redemption – He has gone through the Cross to bear our sins, and through Him, we come to OUR Father! Relationship with the Father, broken by sin, has been restored! Mary, overwhelmed, and full of incredible joy, runs to find the disciples to tell them "I have seen the LORD"! Jesus is gloriously ALIVE and He wants the world to know, and He chooses forgiven sinners, called and precious, to tell them!

Day 2: John 20:19-23

            "Peace to you!" Jesus walks through locked doors! He shows His friends the wounds in His hands and His side – this is truly ME! There is no other story in the world of famous person, religious deity or whatever to match this incredible, amazing, astounding resurrection of Jesus! AND there are still no locked doors, forbidden countries or boundaries that can keep Him out! The disciples were filled with ecstasy! But Jesus knows they need more than their present feelings of overwhelming joy. He breathes His Spirit into them, and gives them His peace – 'shalom' peace for body, mind and spirit – the peace of God which passes understanding. He sends them out as the Father sent Him – in close relationship with the Spirit in them, in the peace and covenant love of the Father!

Day 3: John 20: 24-31

            Thomas has gone down in history as the doubter! Actually, we are told he became a missionary as far as Spain! Here is Thomas, not believing unless he sees with his own eyes, the living Lord. The disciples are again behind locked doors, so fearful still of the religious leaders, and Jesus comes with His greeting "Shalom peace"! He picks out Thomas to come and feel the holes in His hands and side – Thomas, awestruck, cries out, "My LORD and my GOD". Jesus has words especially for us here – and calls us who believe but have not physically seen Him, "Blessed". There is so much meaning in the word, "Blessed" and also "Shalom". We are safe, secure, protected, provided for, strengthened, healed, forgiven, showered with love and kindness – take time today to think of how God is blessing and touching your life, and come before Him with a heart of thanks, saying "My Lord and my God!" We have not seen Him, but we believe in Him, and He loves us!

Day 4: John 21: 1-8

            The disciples have gone back home to Galilee and some of them go out fishing with Peter. How often, when we are not sure what to do next, and may feel afraid and powerless, we just go back to doing what is familiar. Jesus will meet us right there! Jesus calls His disciples, "Children". He cares, as our Father cares, for exactly the problem in your life right where you are right now! Day is breaking and it would no longer be a good time to catch fish, BUT Jesus comes – He is standing there on the beach calling to them. Is there a situation today where you feel you have failed or circumstances are preventing you from moving on? Jesus calls you, "My child!" And He has the answer! As the disciples obey Jesus, they have an overwhelming catch – always there is over-abundance with our Father! I wonder if Peter heard the local cockerels crowing – it was daybreak – his heart is torn as he remembers, and he leaps into the water to meet his Lord. Do you think Jesus splashed into the waves to meet him, love and mercy in His eyes?

Day 5: John 21:9-14

              “Come and eat breakfast.” Today I am copying a piece I saved from a Joseph Prince devotional email : "Jesus represented the Father’s heart and will when He was on earth. ( John 5:19) He cared when His disciples were out at sea the whole night, cold and shivering. He cared when they caught nothing that night. ( John 21:3) He cared that they would not have fish to sell. So He gave them a huge catch early the next morning. ( John 21:5–6) He knew that they were cold and hungry, so He prepared breakfast for them, served over a fire of coals to keep them warm. Jesus showed us that God is our loving heavenly Father who cares about the big and small things that happen every day in our lives. Nothing escapes God’s eyes because He loves you!"

Day 6: John 21:15-19

            Jesus fully restores Peter. Peter denied Jesus three times. Jesus gives him the opportunity here to confess his love three times! And three times gives Peter an important commission, trusting him and believing in him as a beloved friend! This is how Jesus forgives – restoring and bringing us into God's full plan for our lives. You don't have to read much further in the Bible to find out what happened at Pentecost and who preached the day that 3,000 people believed in Jesus as Saviour! He has chosen you. He believes in you, values you and has a purpose and plan for your life serving Him and blessing His family and the world!

Day 7: John 21:20-25

            "You follow ME!" Jesus' answer to Peter's question is full of meaning for us. We can easily use someone else as an excuse not to obey what Jesus is telling us. It is not about whether our family or friends want to follow Jesus or not, or whether they have a different calling from us, Jesus says, "YOU follow Me!" This is the end of a wonderful amazing time in John's beautiful Gospel, and this is the message, he leaves us with – "Follow ME!" John wrote this book that we might believe (20:30-31). He tells us that all the books in the world could not contain all that Jesus said and did – and nor will we ever come to an end of discovering more about our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, as we walk and talk and live with Him for the rest of our lives.

Summary: JESUS IS ALIVE!

             Through His death and resurrection, Jesus has brought us to OUR Father!

                     Let us renew our trust in Him today – put our hand in His and 

                               re-commit our lives to love and serve HIM forever!

Week 11 ~ Readings in John's Gospel

Jesus cried out: "It is Finished!"

Intro: As we read about Jesus, sentenced to die by the cruel Roman torture of crucifixion, and all that then happens to Him, let us take time to consider that He did not have to do it! He willingly gave His life for us, because of His great love for us. Read the following scriptures as we begin the week's readings, all taken from the New Living Translation:

Romans 5:8  "God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were      still sinners"

Isa 53:5,6  "But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all."

1 Pet 2:21-25  "He (Christ) never sinned, nor ever deceived anyone.  He did not retaliate when he was insulted, nor threaten revenge when he suffered. He left his case in the hands of God, who always judges fairly.  He personally carried our sin in his body on the cross, so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right. By his wounds you are healed. Once you were like sheep who wandered away. But now you have turned to your Shepherd, the Guardian of your souls."

Day 1: John 19:1-11

            "Behold the Man!" Pilate, the Roman governor, may consider Jesus to be innocent, and yet he still allows Him to be whipped and tormented by the cruel Roman soldiers. Jesus, with lashes down his back, and blood from the thorns streaming down His head and face is brought out to the Jewish authorities. Think of what this signifies: the blood from His whipping ("His stripes") to bring us physical healing, and the thorny crown a picture of His suffering for the healing, cleansing and renewing of our minds. Jesus is fully man – and, as a perfect man, endures all this to take our guilt and shame. Pilate finds no fault in Him, but the Jewish leaders, filled with hate, shout for Jesus to be crucified. Their loathing and their proud religious ideas will not let them look beyond the fact that they consider He has committed blasphemy by saying He is the Son of God. What is Jesus' answer when Pilate challenges Him that he, Pilate, has the power to set Him free or crucify him? Jesus IS indeed the Son of God and He is obeying His Father and loving His children to the very end.

Day 2: John 19:12-16

            "Behold your King!" The sixth hour is 12 noon – Jesus has been up all night and a prisoner since the early hours of the morning. Now Pilate, failing to have Jesus released, and wanting to stay in favour with the Jewish authorities, gives in to them and sends him to be crucified. The Jews meanwhile are suddenly being terribly loyal to the Roman emperor! Enemies of the Son of God, the Messiah, will still breathe falseness and lies today. For no legal reason whatever, Pilate delivers an innocent man to death on a cross! Jesus is going willingly, laying down His might and authority, to die so that sinners who believe in Him might go free.

Day 3: John 19:17-22

            "Bearing His own cross…" Jesus, already wounded and weak, staggers under the weight of the Cross.  Because of Him, we no longer have to carry the weight of our guilt and pain! They then nail Jesus to that cross. Our minds cannot comprehend the torture of such a death. The inscription stating that this IS the King of the Jews, is in all the major languages of the day. Pilate, without knowing it, is telling the whole world that this Man is dying for them to be their King! Remember John 3:16? It is happening. Jesus is going through with it – for every single person in the whole world – for you and for me!

Day 4: John 19:23-29

            John, writing this account for us, was personally there at the foot of the Cross! Jesus' mother was there, supporting Him in His worst trial. Can you imagine the tenderness in His heart, as in the midst of all His pain, He cares for her future well-being and puts her safely in John's care, to love her with a son's love. Jesus shows us right to the end, how He cares about each one of us individually, looking after our personal emotional, physical and spiritual well-being. Jesus, again fulfilling what the Scripture has said, calls out "I thirst". Of course, He would have had agonising physical thirst, but He was going through this that we might never thirst again! (Remember John 4:14?) All the thirst of sinful mankind for acceptance, significance, security, approval and peace is answered through Jesus Who thirsted on the cross for us. Father is taking us into His close family because Jesus went through this on the Cross for us.

Day 5: John 19:30

            "It is finished" Jesus, of His own volition and obeying His Father to the end, gave up His life to His Father, trusting HIM completely. This verse stands on its own. Jesus had FINISHED all the Father had given Him to do. The Greek word here for "finished" means 'accomplished and completed', but also means "a debt is discharged", "the payment is made". Jesus has paid the debt for all our sins. He has redeemed us to become sons and daughters of our Father. All we have ever thought and done wrong, and all the evil within our being, has been cleansed and dealt with forever and ever, because "It is FINISHED"!

Day 6: John 19:31-42

            Religious pride was happy to crucify Jesus, but not happy that His body should be on a cross on their 'holy' day. Scripture is being fulfilled once again as Jesus' heart and lungs are pierced. Blood and water flow for cleansing and new life. His heart is broken that our broken hearts may be healed. Let's bring Him our sorrows and griefs. He will heal us. After all this, 2 men decide to come out publically in their devotion to Jesus. A bit late, some might say! But they did Him a great service in providing a tomb and laying out and wrapping His body with preserving spices. From now on, do you think that Joseph and Nicodemus would be strong followers of Jesus? Perhaps now Nicodemus began to understand what Jesus was telling him in John 3. Read John 3:14-21 again. Nicodemus had come into the light! Think of any situation in your life where you need to "come into the light" and stand up for Jesus.

Day 7: John 20:1-10

            Resurrection morning! The stone is rolled away! The tomb is empty! Mary Magdalene, is the first at the tomb before daylight. John himself is one of the disciples who runs to find the grave empty! The linen shroud is just lying there! And the head bandages where Jesus' head would have rested. How amazing! No one could just get out of tight wrappings like that - and a dead person certainly couldn't!! John writes "he saw and believed!" Later he writes in his first letter, "That which we have seen and heard, we declare to you…" What we are reading here is firsthand witness. It is not hearsay or rumour – it is the true witness of John himself.  But they do not know what to do next, so they just go back to their lodging place! They do not know what to do next – but just wait and see what follows!

Summary:

Heb 12:2-3   …looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.

Don't be weary and discouraged – look to JESUS! He died so that He could have the joy of everlasting companionship with you! So that he and His Father would be ONE together with US!

Week 10 ~ Readings in John's Gospel

Jesus prays!

Intro: The time has come for Jesus' arrest and trial. What is the last thing Jesus does before he is arrested? All the Gospels tell us that He prays. In the other gospels, He is in anguish before His Father in the Garden of Gethsemane, laying down His own will and struggling with His impending terrible death. But here in John, before Jesus retires to the Garden, John records how Jesus prays for His disciples. And in Romans 8:34 and Hebrews 7:25 we read Jesus Christ is still praying for us! Rom 8:34 (Message version):

"The One who died for us – Who was raised to live for us! - is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us!"            

Even as Jesus faced His arrest, trial and the Cross, He wanted His friends to hear what He prayed – He wants us to know how He cares for and protects us, how He loves and how He and Father desire deep relationship with us. He wants us to know today what is on His heart for us who believe in Him.

Day 1: John 17:1-8

           "This is eternal life …" Jesus is talking to His Father, and, at the same time, giving truth to His disciples. So what is eternal life? – Jesus Himself gives the answer here. Read it again. It is not just about our future in Heaven with God – it is about KNOWING the "only true God" and KNOWING Jesus Christ, His Son, the anointed One, the Messiah.  Now and forever! Eternal life is always about relationship with God. Jesus speaks of His authority and His glory. What is Jesus asking the Father in verses 1 and 5? Jesus left the Father's glory to come to our world as a man – He is now about to return to that glory!  Again John affirms that Jesus was with God and was God before the world began! And now He tells His Father, "I have accomplished the work You gave me to do!" He has manifested the name, character and nature of the Father! v6. He has taught God's words to His disciples, so that they have come to believe in Him.

Day 2: John 17:9-19

            "I pray for them …" Jesus is very clear that He is not praying in general for the world, but for those who love and follow Him – those given to Him as His friends by Father! And He says that His glory is in them! Look what amazing oneness Jesus describes again between Him, His Father, and His disciples! He recognises they will remain in the world, as He goes to the Father. He is concerned for their welfare after He is gone. Perhaps you could make a list of all Jesus is praying here. What mission does He give us – see verse 18. And how does He equip us? Kept in the Father's love, guarded from evil, armed with the truth of the Word of God, one with Jesus, full of His joy – wow, what a picture is painted here, as Jesus, our Intercessor in Heaven, still prays for His disciples. He loves. He passionately cares for us!

Day 3: John 17:20-26

            Continue to list what Jesus is praying for YOU! John records here that it is not just for those disciples present with Jesus at the time, but ALL who believe in Jesus through their words! And so for all who believe in Jesus through our words too! It is so clear that Jesus' mission to represent Father to a sin-stricken, pain-filled world is now our mission. And Jesus prays for us to be one together, that the world might believe. As He made known the Love and nature of the Father, so we make Him known; loving Him, loving one another. Only possible because he prays for us! And Jesus' heart-longing, as He prays is that we might be with Him and He may be in us.

                 

Day 4: John 18:1-9

            We learn here that the Garden was a place where Jesus often went to rest and relax with His disciples. Does it remind you of the Garden of Eden where God would walk and fellowship with Adam and Eve(Gen 3:8)? Where man first sinned and lost close fellowship with God, now Jesus begins God's redemption plan – in a garden with His close friends! The troops arrive with Judas. They ask for Jesus of Nazareth – the carpenter, the man. "I AM He!" As we begin to read this story of betrayal and trial, Jesus stands before us, a man. Only a man can die for the sin of the world. But He is declaring once again "I AM" - God the LORD! The effect of God Himself standing before the tough armed soldiers is that they all fall over backwards! They cannot stay upright in the presence of the LORD! Throughout the story, we will see how Jesus lays down His authority and power, to give Himself willingly, to die for us. At this point He could have just walked away as he has done in other incidents previously. But this is the time! Jesus, in His care for His friends, ensures they go free, whilst offering Himself up. And He chooses from now on to go the way of the Cross.

Day 5: John 18:10-14

            Peter rushes in to defend Jesus! I think he was not very practised at using a sword! He was a fisherman! In Luke 22:51, we read that Jesus touched the slave's ear and healed him! Luke was probably a doctor, and is the only one that records this detail in what would have been a horror scene of bad memories. What is Jesus' answer to Peter as He told Him to put away his sword? Jesus is freely giving Himself up. However willingly Jesus is going with the Roman soldiers and Jewish officers, they still feel it necessary to tie Him up as they lead Him off to the High Priest. Jesus bound, that we might go free!

Day 6: John 18:15-27

            Peter, recently so 'brave' that he pulled out a sword, now denies knowing Jesus – not once, but three times. The cock crows, as Jesus had told him. In the other gospels we read that Peter saw Jesus look at him, and went out and wept bitterly. Can you imagine how he felt, how he must have thought this was the end of everything? Watch the rest of the story regarding Peter – because there is great encouragement for us in the times we let our Lord down and fail to acknowledge Him. (It is totally different from Judas' betraying Jesus, purposefully going into the darkness to ally with Jesus' enemies.) Jesus Himself is facing the start of His trial in front of the Jewish authorities. How brave He is for our sakes. We face no condemnation, because He stood there publically for us. Let's thank Him again today. 

Day 7: John 18:28-40

            The hypocrisy of the religious Jews is incredible – they refuse to go into the Roman Governor's offices as they would defile themselves! BUT they can unashamedly bring an innocent Man to be tried by the Roman government! Pilate, the governor, had to walk from the inside where Jesus was a prisoner to the outer court to argue with His accusers. Jesus answers Pilate, "I AM a King"!  What does He tell Him about His Kingdom? What is Pilate's response in verse 38. Although Pilate finds no fault in Jesus, he still gives the Jewish leaders an opportunity to choose whether to release a thief or Jesus, the King. What do the Jews shout in reply? Jesus was born to be KING. Think today what it meant for Jesus to make it possible for you to be in His Kingdom, hearing His voice, and knowing God's truth!is H

 Summary: Jesus willingly offers Himself in our place! He has God-given authority over the whole world (17:2). He is a man without fault, wholly righteous – a man Who is God and came from the glory of the Father – a man willing to bear humiliation, trial and death – to save us and bring us into His Father's Kingdom, to know His love and protection forever! Oh, let's be those who worship Him as our King and bring glory to His name!