Yesterday brought us to the conclusion of the “Encounters with Jesus” devotionals. In those brief meditations, we had the opportunity to have a first-hand look at Jesus associating and interacting with all kinds of people. Those stories are also our stories. Each one of us needs to experience the compassion, encouragement, challenge, and healing that Jesus personally offered to the people He encountered while He was on earth.
For the next six weeks, we are going to return to the book of John. This series will highlight various passages throughout John’s gospel, taking us from chapter three where John clearly presents our need to be born again, to chapter 21 where he closes his book with these words,
“Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
The entire gospel of John is a progressive revelation of the glory of Jesus Christ, who comes to reveal the Father and then returns in glory to the Father. There is so much for us to learn and be inspired by in this book!
As we begin this new series, be encouraged by these words by Jonathan Edwards in his book Advice to Young Converts:
“Pray that your eyes may be opened, that you may receive sight, that you may know yourself and be brought to God’s feet, and that you may see the glory of God and Christ, may be raised from the dead, and have the love of Christ shed abroad in your heart. Those that have most of these things still need to pray for them; for there so much blindness and hardness and pride and death remaining that they still need to have that work of God upon them, further to enlighten and enliven them. This will be a further bringing out of darkness into God’s marvelous light, and a kind of new conversion.”
Continue to grow in your relationship with Jesus! Read your Bible, pray, connect with other believers, serve; God is working in you, and through you!
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.” —Proverbs 1:7