Category Archives: John

Posted on

Miracles Are Momentary; Faith Is Forever

The Miraculous is a Pathway to Saving Belief

Getting Closer to Jesus: People are infatuated with miracles! They always have been and always will be. I get that! I would love to see more of them as well. And in fact, even though some would deny the miraculous still occurs, they are abounding around the world—especially where we find Christianity in developing nations. When I return from my church planting mission in Africa, usually with dozens of stories of the miraculous, I am always asked, “How come we don’t see the supernatural like that in America?”

I have opinions about that, which I will save for another time, but the point I want to make is that we are no different than the people in Jesus’ day. They too, wanted Jesus to show them the miraculous. Even after he performed miracles, they would turn around and ask him to do a miracle—not another one, mind you, but “do a miracle” as if he had not done one in the first place—so they could believe in him. (John 6:30)

Well, Jesus wanted them to believe in him, too. So, throughout his ministry, he performed miracles to get their attention and clear the path for them to put saving belief in him as Messiah, God’s Son sent as the only source of their eternal salvation. In this chapter, John 6, Jesus has just performed two of his many outstanding miracles: the feeding of the five thousand with five loaves and two fish and walking on water in the midst of a raging storm on the Sea of Galilee. He points out to the people that these “works of God” were to lead them to the only work of God that the Father wanted from them: “Believe in the one he has sent.” (John 6:29)

Now, while Jesus used the miraculous to draw attention to his Divine mission and to authenticate his Divine nature, he also knew that people would gravitate to his miracles as an end in themselves and not as the pathway to saving belief. That’s why he challenged their shortsighted and selfish request for more miracles:

But you shouldn’t be so concerned about perishable things like food [which had just been provided in the miracle feeding]. No, spend your energy seeking the eternal life that I, the Messiah, can give you. For God the Father has sent me for this very purpose.

What was Jesus saying? Miracles are temporary. Think about it: The five thousand people who had just received the bread and fish in the miraculous multiplication would be hungry again the next day. The disciples who were deathly afraid while in the boat that stormy night would face the temptation to fear again, even though Jesus had just demonstrated once and for all his sovereignty over the elements. The people that Jesus raised from the dead in this life would die again someday. So too would the people he miraculously healed.

Yes, miracles are temporary fixes to human frailties, and occasionally our gracious and merciful God breaks into our humanity to provide them, but the miraculous is simply a pathway to saving belief (the faith required for our eternal salvation) and trusting belief (the faith required to obediently walk in daily dependence on God). Miracles are for the moment; belief is boundless, going beyond the moment and lasting throughout eternity.

So, if a miracle is provided in the moment, and it leads to faith, which is forever, then more power to the miraculous!

Take the Next Step : Let me suggest you offer this prayer: “Father, help me to practice your presence in the daily ordinariness of my life. Teach me to make righteous judgments so that I might see you in every person I meet, every event I take in, every plan I execute, and in every detail of my world.”

Posted on

Praying Before Meals

Saying Grace

Getting Closer to Jesus: These easy-to-overlook verses are sandwiched between two of Jesus’ outstanding miracles—the feeding of the five thousand with five loaves of bread and two small fish, and the miracle of Jesus walking on the water. Not only that, at the end of this lengthy chapter is some of the heaviest theology that Jesus would ever lay on his would-be followers. It was so demanding and confrontational, in fact, that his followers called it a “hard saying”, and most of them quit following him from that point on.

With so much important stuff going on in this chapter, it would be easy to miss the fact that Jesus stopped to give thanks before a meal. Think about that for a moment: Why would Jesus do that? In a sense, wasn’t he really saying grace to himself? What purpose did this serve?

To begin with, I think Jesus was truly grateful to his Father for this provision of resources by which the miraculous feeding could occur. I think Jesus was authentically thankful that his Father had authorized the use of Divine power and was about to yet again authenticate the Messianic ministry and mission of the Son. I think the Second Person of the eternal Trinity was a fundamentally grateful being. It was just who Jesus was; the organic overflow of his Divine nature was love, joy, confidence and, in this case, gratitude.

“Jesus—the eternal, self-existence One—said grace before his meal. And if Jesus, who didn’t have to do it, did it, then we, who don’t have to do it, most definitely should!

Not only that, but Jesus was also modeling for us the appropriateness and the power of gratitude. He was reminding us by his actions that it doesn’t hurt to stop and express thanksgiving to God, and one of the simplest and recurring ways to enter into gratitude is to say a simple “thank you” before each meal.

We don’t know exactly what Jesus said in his prayer, but it was likely short and sweet. John simply says he “gave thanks.” He acknowledged God in that moment, drawing attention to the Heavenly Provider and reminding both himself and those who were within earshot of his dependence on and gratitude to Father God.

That is something you and I can do too, each time we sit down (or drive through) for a meal. We can give thanks. As redundant and useless and perfunctory as it may seem, there is power in this simple act. And if Jesus, who didn’t have to do it, did it, then we, who don’t have to do it, most definitely should!

Take the Next Step : Before every meal this week, say grace. Pause, think about it; then offer up to your gracious Heavenly Father the gratitude that is in your heart for all the good things he has provided.

Posted on

Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff (It’s All Small Stuff)

Nothing Is Above God’s Paygrade

Getting Closer to Jesus: I’m not sure who first said it (it’s origin has been attributed to several different authors), but I think it offer some sage advice for people who follow Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior; rules for living, we could rightly call it. It simply goes like this:

Rule # 1: Don’t sweat the small stuff.
Rule #2: It’s all small stuff.

That is true! You see, with God, nothing is impossible; it’s all small stuff to him. That is not just my theology, that comes from God’s own mouth. God told a perplexed Abraham and a cynical Sarah when he announced to them that they would have a son well into their 90’s (and beyond, actually, for Abraham):

Why did Sarah laugh? Why did she say, ‘Can an old woman like me have a baby?’ Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return about this time next year, and Sarah will have a son. (Genesis 18:13-14)

Is anything too hard for the Lord? No—it’s all small stuff! Even giving barren, centenarian couples their first child.

When Jeremiah the prophet was crying out to God over the devastation of Israel and the insurmountable problems the nation was facing, the Holy Spirit inspired him to prayerfully pour out this affirmation in his appeal to the Almighty for help:

O Sovereign Lord! You made the heavens and earth by your strong hand and powerful arm. Nothing is too hard for you! (Jeremiah 32:17)

Later in that same chapter, God himself sent this word to the prophet:

I am the Lord, the God of all the peoples of the world. Is anything too hard for me? (Jeremiah 32:26-27)

Is anything too hard for the Lord? No—it’s all small stuff! Even taking a shattered, scattered nation and reconstituting it for his glory and purpose.

Do you get the point? Nothing is above God’s pay grade. That’s because the created order in its entirety was conceived and perfectly engineered in the mind of God before it came into being. God created everything that exists by the breath of his mouth. God hung the stars by flicking them into space with his finger. He holds everything that we see and don’t see perfectly into place by his powerful and caring hand. There is nothing—absolutely nothing—that escapes his watchful eye.

And therefore, there is nothing—absolutely nothing—that is too big or too hard for him. Nothing is impossible to God, and therefore, all things are possible for his people.

That’s why Jesus, who is God the Son, the agent of creation, said to Phillip, “What shall we do with this gigantic crowd of seekers? They’re hungry, and we’ve got to feed them. Where can we get that much food?” Of course, we know how the massive crowd would get miraculously fed because John clearly states that Jesus already knew what he was going to do. His question was just to test Phillip for the purpose of stretching his faith.

And Jesus will do that with us, too. Even though he already knows what he’s going to do, he doesn’t automatically do it without first stretching, tempering, testing, and strengthening our faith, which is of greater value than any miraculous intervention we could hope for.

But don’t miss the whole point of this: Jesus already knows what he needs to do. And if that is true, then Rule #1 for you as his follower would be, “Don’t sweat the small stuff!” Why? It is a wasted use of energy, and it’s dishonoring to the One who already knows what to do. Therefore, as his follower, Rule #2 is certainly true too, “It’s all small stuff!”

Since that is true, why not relax a little bit today and let God be God? Exercise your trust and let God take care of your big stuff, since it’s all small stuff to him.

Take the Next Step : What are you sweating today? Visualize holding it in the palms of your hands. Walk outside and lift your hands heavenward and release it to the Lord with these words, “Father, this is too big for me, but not for you. Here, you take it and do with it according to your purpose.” Then thank God that he has just given you the greatest gift: He has stretched your faith!

Posted on

Loving Scripture but Missing God

The Danger Lurking in Daily Quit Time

Getting Closer to Jesus: I can think of no simpler yet more powerful practice for greater spiritual growth and intimacy with God than daily Bible study. The truth is, if you don’t have a regular quiet time with God—which would include not just reading, but meditation as well as incorporating the Scripture in prayer— your spiritual vitality will be stunted. It is as simple as that.

Yet Bible reading, journaling, scripture memory, and all the other wonderful disciplines that involve the Word of God are not enough. In fact, there is a very real danger lurking in the practice of daily quiet time that will lead to even greater distance from God than not reading at all: Love of the Word of God more than the love of God, which is rightfully described in the following:

Bibliolatry occurs when we acquire biblical knowledge without spiritual discernment; when our study of the Word is not commensurate to our obedience of the Word; when our love for Scripture exceeds our love for God, and correspondingly, love for our fellow man; when pride in our practice of Bible reading leads to a false sense of righteousness; and when the spiritual discipline of quiet time becomes a work of law rather than an experience of grace. When that occurs, in effect, we are worshiping the Bible rather than the God of the Bible.

There are far too many “Christians” who read the Bible too little, if at all. That is an unfortunate blight on the modern church. Yet there is another segment of believers, much smaller, but in deeper spiritual danger, who have been lulled into a sort of spiritual smugness because they fancy themselves as “people of the Word” or because, as they happily proclaim, the church they attend really “teaches” the Word.

Knowing the Bible isn’t enough. Satan knows the Bible as well as anyone. He can quote it at will. Daily reading and Scripture memory aren’t enough. Nicodemus (see John 3) had that down pat. Going to a church that teaches the Word through the Bible isn’t enough. The Pharisees had that down pat, yet they were far from God. Hearing, reading, and believing the Bible aren’t enough. Believing in Jesus is. Jesus said,

Whoever believes the Son has eternal life. (John 3:36)

The ultimate goal of Bible study should not be to gain greater knowledge of Scripture, or to grow spiritually, or to simply be able to check off that item on your daily list of things to do. The best goal—the only goal, in fact—should be to know God and his Son, Jesus Christ. By “knowing”, I am not referring to an intellectual event, but the intimate exchange of one’s life with the Almighty whereby love is deepened, obedience is practiced, and faith is expanded.

That is when searching the Scripture leads to eternal life.

Take the Next Step : Honestly evaluate if your Bible disciplines—reading, memorizing, studying, and meditating—are leading you to a closer walk with Jesus and to taking on his character—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Posted on

No Judgment

A God Who is Just … and Loving

Getting Closer to Jesus: We live in a culture that despises the notion of judgment on any level. In particular, we aren’t comfortable with an angry God. People prefer a tame God to a dangerous one. As Dorothy Sayers aptly put it, “We have declawed the lion of Judah and made him a housecat for pale priests and pious old ladies.”

I don’t blame people for that. But if we are to be faithful to the authority of the Scripture, then we will have to acknowledge that God hates sin, which is morally offensive to his nature. Therefore, it is only right and just that he judges the unrepentant sinner who persists in breaking his moral law.

The sobering reality is that God’s righteous wrath will be poured out on sinful humanity someday in the future. When people die in their sinful state, there is a literal hell that awaits them, a physical place where they will suffer the eternal wrath of God. Likewise, scripture is very clear that one day, at the end of the age, the Great White Throne judgment of God (Revelation 20, Romans 2:5-6) will mark the final end of sin, when Satan, evil systems, and all the wicked will be cast into the lake of fire forever.

Obviously, that is a boatload of bad news! Yet amazingly, because of the immutable character of our gracious and merciful God, even within the bad news there is good news—Good News that should cause our hearts to explode in grateful praise. We can escape judgment!

You see, God’s righteous wrath for mankind’s sin was satisfied at Calvary when Jesus suffered and died as the final sacrifice for our sins. God fully focused his judgment against sinful man on his sinless Son, Jesus, as his hung on the cross. In the greatest act of grace and mercy ever, Jesus bore the wrath of God for the sins of the world when he was crucified”

“He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.” (1 Peter 2:24)

Jesus is very clear that when a person puts believing or saving faith in who he is (God in the flesh) and in what he was sent to do (die as the redeeming sacrifice for the sins of the world) and personally trusts that he rose from the dead as Lord of life, then that believing person gets a pass on the worst, most dreadful, persistent fear—in this case, a reality-based fear: The fear of dying and facing the judgment of God.

For sure, it can be quite discouraging to hear about a God who actually punishes sin. And yes, we can understand why our culture wants to deny the reality of any kind of judgment. Yet anyone—yes, anyone—can take heart, despite that reality, there stands at the center of Divine wrath the grace and mercy of a God so loving that he willingly sacrificed his only Son so that the guilt of sin could be erased from our account.

And that includes you, me, and anyone else who will surrender to Jesus in believing faith. As Jesus said two chapters previously, “God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him would not die but have eternal life.”

Obviously, there is a reason that John 3:16 is the most well-loved verse in the entire Bible.

Take the Next Step: When you are in conversations with people who don’t believe in Jesus—and even with some who claim faith in Christ—it is likely that at some of those you  encounter will be of  the “no judgment” mindset. Try to represent this Truth when that happens: Yes, there is a judgment coming, but there is also an escape clause that God has built into his righteous obligation to judge sin—saving faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. That really is Good News!

Posted on

Do You Really Want to Change

Risk Bending Your Will to God’s Will

Getting Closer to Jesus: Does it seem that Jesus’ question, “Do you really want to be healed?” is a bit insensitive? After all, this man had been paralyzed—and totally dependent on others—for thirty-eight years. He had been waiting at this pool for who knows how long, in the belief that when the waters stirred, whoever got into the pool first would receive the healing they needed

Do you really want to be healed—really, Jesus? The answer to that is a resounding “No, not at all is that insensitive of Jesus!” Since Jesus’ one desire was to do the will of the Father and restore the lost sheep to the care of the Good Shepherd—and therefore, insensitivity could not be a part of his character—there must be more here than meets the eye.

One of the things we see in this story is how Jesus’ power operates. And whether it had to do with healing, as is the case here, or deliverance, or salvation, the power of God flowed through Jesus mercifully and graciously, but that Divine flow always demanded a human response to be fully activated and thoroughly experienced. That human response is what we call faith. And anytime Jesus acted in a way that we might consider harsh, it was simply the Lord doing what he discerned would be needed to move a person to respond to God in faith.

In this story, we see a pattern of this very thing. To begin with, Jesus initiated the man’s healing by asking him if he really wanted to be healed. It could have been that the lame man had grown accustomed to his condition, as strange as that may sound. But think about it: others did everything for him, and to be suddenly healed would turn that arrangement upside down. He would now have to work, take care of himself, and contribute to his family and society.

Or it could be that this man’s hope was so dead that any expression of the faith needed to respond to a work of God had died with it long ago. But this man’s response was immediate and sure. Yes, he wanted to be healed—even though that seemed impossible since he had no one to help him—so he was ready for the change, and all that change would require in his life.

Being ready for change—and willing to cooperate in it—is a critical piece to the work of God in our lives, since Divine transformation cannot take place without human cooperation. The sick, the enslaved, and the unsaved must see their need for God, must be ready to abandon their dysfunction and be willing to step out in faith for God’s work to take its full course.

Moreover, we see that in asking the lame man to “get up” Jesus was saying, “grab your will, reject your dysfunction, and exercise your faith to join in with what God desires to do in your body right now.” As William Barclay said, “The power of God never dispenses with the effort of man.” The power of God in our lives is released to have its effect when our will engages God’s. Now to be clear, our won’t create God’s power, it only opens the spigot wide for that power to flow. Said another way, our faith doesn’t earn God’s favor, but certainly, it either activates it and/or enhances its effect to a fuller degree in our lives.

“Get up”…a very bold command to you and me, perhaps even insensitive to expect such a thing of a man paralyzed for thirty-eight years, but it was what this man needed to catalyze the human faith needed to activate Divine power. And as he bent his will to accommodate the command of Jesus, power happened—and so did one of the outstanding miracles of the Bible.

This is the pattern of the release of power—God’s power to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. We face so many things in our lives that hinder, harass, and hurt us. But when we offer faith-desire and are willing to risk bending our will to God’s will—even if we have lived in bondage to a condition for an insufferably long time—the opportunity is created for God’s power through Christ’s Lordship to turn our victimization into victory.

Take the Next Step : Faith is your response to what God has already willed and what he desires to do. Your faith doesn’t create his power; it only turns on the flow so that when his timing is right, Divine energy to heal, deliver, strengthen and save can wash over you in mighty waves. If that be so, then ask God to purify your faith—and be ready to offer it to your gracious God.

Posted on

To Believe Is to See

Credo Ut Intelligam

Getting Closer to Jesus: “Sir,” replied the official, “come with me before my child dies.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live!” The man believed Jesus’ words and went.

In essence, what this father in John’s story (John 4:43-54) said was, “I’ll see it when I believe it!” And that, my friend, is at the core of outstanding faith. Let me explain:

While we live in a time and in a culture where the scientific method has become man’s guiding theology, it is God who has set the rules for knowing and experiencing him. And he has declared that the avenue to knowledge and experience is by way of faith.

This is an infinitely critical point in light of the fact that modern man has elevated the empirical over revelation as the way to enlightenment. Obviously, a world that is determined to put faith only in that which can be demonstrated by data, where man’s reason is king and metaphysical faith is optional, is in direct conflict with God’s world.

But for the Christian, everything starts with God. Sensory data—what a person can see, hear, smell, touch, and taste—is not a bad thing; don’t misunderstand. In my humble opinion, scientific provability is God-given, and since God created it, we would do well to exercise it. It is not antithetical to faith—necessarily—but while physical proof can lead to knowledge or an acknowledgment of God, only revelation can lead to a knowledge of who God truly is—the God of the Scriptures who has revealed himself through Jesus Christ, and who, according to his own sovereign plan, at times breaks into our lives with his power.

Revelation is based on something other, something more. Revelation is based on the truth that God took the initiative to make himself knowable, that he has revealed himself—both spiritually and physically—to us through his Word and by his Son. Now the empirical and the revealed will not contradict each other, because both are from God. But what we see and what we can prove alone will not suffice.

In the eleventh century, St. Anselm argued that faith is the precondition of knowledge: “I believe in order that I may understand” (credo ut intelligam). In other words, knowledge and experience cannot lead to faith. It might get you close, but it won’t get you there. Faith is a gift from God, and when faith is experienced, true knowledge and experience flows.

What Anselm said was eloquently stated long before in the fourth century by another pillar of the Christian faith, St. Augustine. Augustine taught that, “faith is to believe what we do not see; and the reward of this faith is to see what we believe.” In God’s world, we are to express faith in God first; then knowledge of God and experience with God will follow.

In the story we read about in John 4, this is exactly what is going on with the government official from Capernaum. Jesus has just made the frustrating observation that people will only believe when they see his miracles and wonders (John 4:48). And even then, it is very likely that their “belief” will only be temporary; only good until the next miracle is needed. But then this father, desperate for his deathly sick son to be healed, offers a different response to Jesus: He is willing to believe in order that he might see.

So what does that have to do with what you are facing in your life today? Plenty! God is discernable and knowable through the exercise of your faith. Perhaps you don’t see evidence of that right at this moment, but let me challenge you to believe what you don’t see, exercising faith in a loving God, and the reward will be that you will see, sooner or later, what you believe.

It takes faith—but that has been proven over the millennia! Just ask the father whose son was healed in John 4.

Take the Next Step Perhaps you have been depending on your sight more than your faith these days. If so, here is a prayer you might consider offering to God: “Gracious Father, I believe. Help any unbelief I may have. I don’t see everything I’d like to see, but I believe. And while I pray that you would reveal yourself in my life today in tangible ways, I also pray that I would trust your love, your care, and your promised favor even if the tangible doesn’t appear. In the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, the revealed Word, I pray. Amen.”