Category Archives: John

⁹ “I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. ¹⁰ When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. ¹¹ I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow! ¹² This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. ¹³ There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. ¹⁴ You are my friends if you do what I command. ¹⁵ I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me. ¹⁶ You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name. ¹⁷ This is my command: Love each other.

John 15:9-15

Dear God, I was thinking about Abraham this morning and the juxtaposition of his faith and love for you and the many bad kings that followed David in Israel. The idea was to end up after life in the bosom of Abraham (Luke 16). But they didn’t love you. They gave up on looking beyond themselves and their limited power. They clung to their pride. They didn’t want to submit and then go through the work of worship and relationship with you.

Are we any different? Am I any different? Oh, perhaps I’m a little different in that I continue, at least up to this point, to strive to worship you, pray to you, learn from you, and pursue relationship with you. But it’s all fragile. There are days when it feels easier to just sink into myself and gratify all of my own desires. It’s like marriage a little. It takes work on my part for a healthy relationship. The path of least resistance–the wide path–is to indulge my own selfishness, ignore my wife and her needs, and just…I don’t know…be a jerk. But the more difficult but fulfilling past–the narrow path–takes self-sacrifice, self-denial, and work. But at the end of the day, it’s the much more rewarding path.

How much more so is the narrow path worth it with you? I was listening to a discussion this morning on the theology around hell and the afterlife. I confess to you that I have no idea what all of that means. However, I am confident that relationship with you on earth and the fruits of the Spirit that come from loving you and obeying your commands are worth more than the fruits of the flesh described in Galatians 5. When I come to the end of my life, I’d rather look back on a life marked with love, joy, peace, etc. (Galatians 5:22-23) than a life full of “sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, ²⁰ idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, ²¹ envy, drunkenness, wild parties” (Galatians 5:19-21).

Father, Holy Spirit, please be with me today. Pray for me. Pray for my friends. My wife and I spent some time this morning praying specifically for a friend with family issues. Please guide them. I know this couple does the hard work. I know they worship you. Please be their comforter and counselor now. Please honor their prayers. Please bring glory to the world through this pain. Don’t let it be wasted. And don’t let my day be wasted either. Show me what to do to bring glory to your name throughout the earth.

I pray this through Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection,

Amen

“For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him. “There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him. But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son. And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed. But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants.”
John 3:16-21

Dear God, there is so much to emotionally, mentally, and even spiritually process from the last two days. It’s seems like there are different levels of evil, but it’s hard to know when it’s gone too far. The young man in Uvalde—the evil drove him too far. I don’t know what his motivations were. I don’t know what drove him to crave destruction of so many innocents. I have grieved over the last two days. I’m sure the grief has been terrible for you.

Of course, you grieve like this every day, I’m sure. You see the Uvalde equivalent but on a much larger scale in Ukraine. You see the Uvalde equivalent on a smaller scale in individual homes. You see what we do to each other online. In person. Through our words. Through our actions. Through our silence. You see your children give into hatred and let it feed them. I’ve certainly let anger in me turn into some form of hatred. And all of this just grows in darkness.

Father, help me to really be a source of light—your light—in this world. Help me to experience your complete freedom and joy and then share the opportunity to experience that joy with others. I am your Plan A. Your church is your Plan A. There is no Plan B. Help us to be a light that is willing to shine in the shadows so that your presence might go into all the world.

In Jesus’s name I pray,

Amen

Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die. Do you believe this, Martha?” “Yes, Lord,” she told him. “I have always believed you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who has come into the world from God.”
John 11:25-27

Dear God, what would you like to make sure I believe? For example, the Jewish people at the time were supposed to believe in the future coming of the Messiah. Jesus wanted Martha to believe he was that person. I guess the equivalent of that today would be the second coming. But since that won’t be a vague event, but something that will knock me over the head with Jesus appearing in the east, trumpets, and all of that, I don’t know that that will be left up to my interpretation. So is there any part of theology that you want to make sure I believe?

Actually, now that I read this a little closer, Jesus is also asking if she believes in the peace of knowing she and those she loves will endure into the next life. I actually believe this, I think pretty soundly. Probably since I was taught it from an early age. I wonder what death would be like if I didn’t believe it.

I spoke with a woman yesterday who just lost her mom from a long illness. I’ve seen my wife go through the loss of both of her parents. I know we’ve talked a lot about their current existence together with you. Those losses have been very hard for her, but there’s a foundation of peace as well thanks to this good news. We can be reconciled to you and dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Father, open my eyes so I can see. Help me to not only learn and know what you want me to know but also share that with others. Help me to be in Christian community to the point where I am learning from you through others. I pray that you will raise up voices in the lives of those I love, like my children, who will be your presence and words to them. Do the same for me as well. Help me to be everything you want and need me to be for your glory’s sake. And thank you for the peace of knowing I get to physically be with you and those most precious to me for all eternity.

In Jesus’s name I pray,

Amen

In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He existed in the beginning with God. God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him. The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it. God sent a man, John the Baptist, to tell about the light so that everyone might believe because of his testimony. John himself was not the light; he was simply a witness to tell about the light. The one who is the true light, who gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He came into the very world he created, but the world didn’t recognize him. He came to his own people, and even they rejected him. But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God. So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.
John 1:1-14

Dear God, sometimes I just need to get back to the basics. We layer a lot of theology onto things, but with Jesus it. One back to some simple things. Jesus is part of you come to earth. Essentially, you sent a piece of yourself to do something remarkable. What did you do? You simultaneously gave us instruction and reconciled all of us to you.

I’ve told people before that when I get to heaven I am going to learn that a lot of my theology is wrong. It’s not anyone’s fault. It’s just that theology is complicated and a lot can get innocently skewed over the years. That said, I think the Jesus part is important. The redemption part. Ah, there’s the word redemption again. You purchased me back through Jesus. Everything else is just me figuring out how you want me to use the rest of my days.

Father, help me to major in the majors. Help me to die to myself, take up my cross and follow you. Help me to know how to parent my children. Help me to know how to be a member of my extended family. Help me to know how to do my job, engage with my community and husband my wife. Break me, melt me, mold me, and fill me. Spirit of the living God, fall fresh on me.

In Jesus’s name I pray,

Amen

All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed. But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants.”
John 3:20-21

Dear God, thank you that you make it possible to be in the light. Thank you that you make it possible to just throw our shame away and let it go. Thank you for your forgiveness. Thank you for your mercy.

I was talking with a friend of mine yesterday about how you take a knife to the knots of our sin and just cut it away. Sometimes there’s just simply no way to untie what we’ve done. We cannot make it better. We just need you to take your knife of mercy to it and release us from the bondage we created.

Of course, Jesus also said that we are to ask that you forgive us as we forgive others. That means, at least in certain cases where someone comes seeking forgiveness, that we need to take our own knife to a situation and, as much as possible, give mercy to the person. That doesn’t mean we have to trust indiscriminately again, but it does mean we can love beyond what might be deserved in our own minds.

Father, again, thank you for offering me a path to the light. I’m very sorry for my son and all of the knots I create. Help me to receive your mercy, extend mercy to myself, extend mercy to others, and then be willing to repent before you and others when I e made a mistake. For your glory alone, oh, Lord.

In Jesus’s name I pray,

Amen