Category Archives: John

God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.

John 3:17

Dear God, my first introduction to this verse (the little known verse that follows the most famous verse in the Bible—John 3:16) was in church when I was in high school. As part of his benediction each week, our pastor would pick a couple of verses and and pronounce them over the congregation for a year. One year, he picked John 16 AND 17.

In this version, it says that you didn’t send Jesus into the world to “judge” the world. The NIV that my pastor used at the time used the word “condemn” instead. That’s the word that I hear when I hear this. And it was only recently that I put it together that Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus for this little rant. This is part of the whole “how can a person enter into his mother’s womb a second time” conversation. In the end, this encounter made a huge difference in Nicodemus’ life and it completely changed his trajectory.

That being said, it seems that you had a very specific purpose for sending Jesus into the world and it goes back to love. You are our father just constantly sending out love. My wife recently tried to describe the love that a parent has for their child to someone who has no children. They couldn’t understand why someone would absorb rejection and keep reaching out anyway. She told the young woman that there was really no way to explain it until she had children of her own. We have all rejected you and disappointed you so many times, and yet you keep reaching out, doing everything you can to be there for us and what we need.

Father, I am reaching back. I accept your love and I’m doing my best to return it. Being a father myself, I know that there is something to be said for earnestness, so I am sure my earnestness, inadequate as it may be, combined with your grace is enough for you. So thank you. Thank you for loving me.

In Jesus’ name I pray,

Amen

“I have revealed you to the ones you gave me from this world. They were always yours. You gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything I have is a gift from you, for I have passed on to them the message you gave me. They accepted it and know that I came from you, and they believe you sent me. “My prayer is not for the world, but for those you have given me, because they belong to you. All who are mine belong to you, and you have given them to me, so they bring me glory. Now I am departing from the world; they are staying in this world, but I am coming to you. Holy Father, you have given me your name; now protect them by the power of your name so that they will be united just as we are. During my time here, I protected them by the power of the name you gave me. I guarded them so that not one was lost, except the one headed for destruction, as the Scriptures foretold. “Now I am coming to you. I told them many things while I was with them in this world so they would be filled with my joy. I have given them your word. And the world hates them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I’m not asking you to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from the evil one. They do not belong to this world any more than I do. Make them holy by your truth; teach them your word, which is truth. Just as you sent me into the world, I am sending them into the world. And I give myself as a holy sacrifice for them so they can be made holy by your truth.

John 17:6-19

Dear God, I love how specific this prayer is. Jesus has zeroed in on his close followers and talked about his desires for them. He will move on to future believers in a bit, but for now, in this moment, he was focusing on the needs of the people to whom he is the closest. What did Jesus request for them?

1. That their unity would be protected
2. To not take them out of the world, but to protect them from Satan
3. Make them Holy
4. Teach them with your word

Father, I would like to embrace this prayer and ask it for myself and for those I know and live. Make me one with your community and my fellow believers. I don’t want to be removed from the world, but I want to be your presence in the world. I need your protection. Please forgive me of my sins and wash me in Jesus’ blood. And please continue to teach me so that I will be as close to knowing you as possible by the time my life on earth is done.

In Jesus’ name I pray,

Amen

31 “Do you now believe?” Jesus replied. 32 “A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me. 33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

John 16:31-33

Dear God, no matter how hard we try, our sinful human nature just won’t let us really perform at our best until the chips are down and we are facing adversity. I can’t think of a time when my truly best work was done in the midst of good fortune and easy times, but I can think of many times when crisis put me into action and through it I came up with some of my greatest successes.

I was at a meeting yesterday where we got bad news. This is a very professionally run group of people, but realities in their business are making them respond and raise their game. The same is true for where I work. I try to keep us moving and doing good work, but the fact remains that we do our best work when we are facing adversity.

How much of that can be said of my private life as well? All of it, of course. I am at my best as a husband/father when we are facing adversity. I am at my most productive as just an individual when I have to raise my game to meet a specific challenge. And I am at my best as a Christian when I am being pressed because, although I try to discipline myself to come to you regularly when things are good, my heart kicks it up to 11 when I am under pressure.

Father, I would ask that you forgive me for my failings in this area, but, frankly, you seem to completely understand this and allow for it in your love for me. So help me to be who you need me to be. Help me to love those around me who need my love. Help me to seek your face and really bathe in your Holy Spirit. And help me to dig in and do good work today for the sake of those who it helps, for my sake, but most of all for your Kingdom’s sake.

In Jesus’ name I pray,

Amen

That Sunday evening the disciples were meeting behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders. Suddenly, Jesus was standing there among them! “Peace be with you,” he said. As he spoke, he showed them the wounds in his hands and his side. They were filled with joy when they saw the Lord! One of the twelve disciples, Thomas (nicknamed the Twin), was not with the others when Jesus came. They told him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he replied, “I won’t believe it unless I see the nail wounds in his hands, put my fingers into them, and place my hand into the wound in his side.”

John 20:19-20,24-25

Dear God, pobrecito Thomas (poor Thomas). I don’t think John intended to single him out as a “doubter,” but as someone expressing what they were all feeling. What were they feeling? Despair. Frustration. Fear. Uncertainty. Lack of direction/confusion. Anger. Really, the list I am coming up with here is limited only to the amount of time I am willing to give to it—and then I would still miss some. But my point is, I think John felt the same way Thomas did.

There’s a fun, campy song by Carman called “Sunday’s on the Way.” There’s a like that says, “When problems try to bury you and make it hard to pray, it may seem like Friday night, but Sunday’s on the way.” “Sunday” is the unknown moment that we won’t know when it comes until after we’ve passed it. In the midst of overwhelmedness, confusion, despair, fear, anger, etc., my hope isn’t in a specific outcome. My hope isn’t in a timeline. My only hope is that you are in your heaven and all is right with the world.

Father, to quote another song, “[I] don’t know where all this is going, or how it all works out. Lead [me] to peace that passes understanding. A peace beyond all doubt.”

In Jesus’ name I pray,

Amen

So John’s disciples came to him and said, “Rabbi, the man you met on the other side of the Jordan River, the one you identified as the Messiah, is also baptizing people. And everybody is going to him instead of coming to us.” John replied, “No one can receive anything unless God gives it from heaven. You yourselves know how plainly I told you, ‘I am not the Messiah. I am only here to prepare the way for him.’ It is the bridegroom who marries the bride, and the bridegroom’s friend is simply glad to stand with him and hear his vows. Therefore, I am filled with joy at his success. He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less.

Dear God, these last two sentences are great. I find it interesting that John’s disciples are jealous of the Messiah’s success. They were obviously enjoying the fame and attention they were getting by hanging out with this odd, but Godly guy. Now, they saw Jesus having more “success” than John (and maybe they had some personal rivalries with Jesus’ disciples) so they were concerned.

But since John was their teacher, you were able to teach them through John. The lesson? Jesus is greater. Celebrate his success. He must increase and all of us must decrease. I wonder what the conversations among them were like after this teaching from John. How did they handle this—especially since John was close to being arrested.

Father, help me to yield to your instruction. Help me to decrease and you increase. Help me to do whatever I can to bring glory to you and deflect it from myself. Help me to love. Help me to worship. Help me to do everything you have for me to do.

In Jesus’ name I pray,

Amen

So Jesus said again, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you cannot have eternal life within you. At this point many of his disciples turned away and deserted him. Then Jesus turned to the Twelve and asked, “Are you also going to leave?”

John 6:53,66-67

Dear God, I left our verses 54-65 because I wanted to link the subject to the verb, as it were. Jesus says some hard things here at the end of John 6, but it’s almost like he’s intentionally turning up the heat to clear off the chaff. The problem I have when I read this passage is that I’m pretty sure that, if I had come along with Jesus this far if I had been there at the time, I’m pretty sure this would have been the last straw for me. I would have been wrong, but I probably would have left.

With what was in Jesus’ future, I wonder if he was just really drilling down to see who would be with him post-resurrection after the real disillusionment of the crucifixion had happened. I recently read a book about special forces training in the army and what they put people through mentally, physically and emotionally. The trainee who made it all of the way through said (disclaimer, I don’t necessarily agree with this, but I think there’s some truth to it) that he used to think getting to the end and not quitting was about determination, but after going through it he decided that the people who didn’t make it were the ones who couldn’t make that final decision to not think for themselves and be completely subject to a superior’s orders. Those that made it, on the other hand, were willing to have individual thought completely purged from them and then have it rebuilt in the military’s image. Is that a little of what Jesus was doing here?

Father, this has always been a hard story for me. I know you loved the people who went away. I know you followed through with your plan for them as well as anyone else. But for the job at hand, perhaps you just didn’t need them. I wonder what happened to a lot of them. I guess, as for me, my hope is that you will forgive and allow for my failings.

In Jesus’ name I pray,

Amen

And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life. “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 3:14-21

Dear God, as I read this passage and try to compare it to the story from Numbers 21 I am trying to make the link between the viper-stricken person who had grumbled in the wilderness and me, the guy who needs to look upon Jesus to be healed. What are our similarities?

The first similarity is that I am on a journey. Even last night, I had what I would call stress dreams—being late for a plane, can’t get everything packed, etc. There’s a lot going on in my physical world and I’m obviously trying to sort through it and getting on top of it. But am I looking at Jesus and remembering the peace that comes with your provision? Am I remembering to pray in real time and look for your peace. Am I doing the work I need to do each day with your power, authority, and blessing?

Father, help me to look to you, do what is in front of me to do with your power, and absorb the notion that you are calling me to peace. I fail. I am sinful. I am often afraid my sins will be exposed. But your light brings freedom. Be glorified in me through my weakness.

In Jesus’ name I pray,

Amen