grace and truth – BibleJournal.net

True Light, True Life

What is the darkest physical place you have every been? Two places that come to mind for me are inside of a cave while visiting Ruby Falls when they turned the lights off and the other being on the deck of a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean at night as a child. I can remember thinking while standing on the deck that if I fall off they will never find me! Of course, the ship we were on even had lights. I can remember thinking how dark it must have been for some of the first explorers at sea.

Right now, we have a lot of darkness in this world. Every day it seems there is word of another terrible shooting, leader or celebrity succumbing to the temptation of sin that is in news, or a political/social issue that’s causing division and bickering with the platform of social media making it more evident. The world is often a dark place. There are also many individually that are living in darkness with depression, anxiety, and just an unhappiness they are experiencing to which they possibly can’t even pinpoint the reason.

John 1:1-17 tells us that Jesus is the true source of light and thus life. Specifically, John 1:4-5 says, “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” Revelation 21:23 tells us in Heaven there is no sun or moon needed because the glory of God brings light.

Why is God light? John 1:14 tells us His glory comes from his grace and truth. This glory provides the light as mentioned above in Revelation 21:23. In this world, we have much of the opposite. We don’t have much grace. We have much more judgement and gossip about others not noticing our own sin. We also have sin and lies through not following the truth in the Bible and the way He wants us to live so we are a slave to sin bringing more unhappiness (John 8:34).

If you are reading this and struggling with stress, anxiety, depression, or just unhappiness, I would encourage you to think about how you can get more light in your life…more Jesus…through His Word, small group, prayer, and I even might encourage you to watch the series The Chosen. The series is not a substitute for the Bible, but it can inspire us to get in the Word more to help grow our relationship with Jesus through seeing the realness of who He was as both man and Son of God full of grace and truth who brought light and life to everyone. Many struggling with these challenges may need a doctor and/or counselor of which I would encourage a Christian counselor for the help needed to point us in the right direction back to Him.

It is easy for me to become self-absorbed… focused on my own problems, issues, and challenges. But ultimately when I die some day what I truly want is to know that I made an impact on others during my lifetime on this Earth. To try to keep me more focused on this, I recently changed my mission statement to “Impacting others by helping them live life to the fullest.” This was inspired by John 10:10 where Jesus says He came so that we may have life and live it abundantly. This allows me to ask myself, am I helping those around me live life abundantly and to the fullest? Am I building others up so they can see they are a child of God who He made for a purpose and bigger things than they may see for themselves? Are they seeing the love of Jesus and His grace and truth come from my lips and in my actions? Unfortunately, the answer to these questions are not always yes and are no way too often.

Reading this mission statement and being in His Word helps get me re-focused and re-centered. I’ve heard it said when we interact with another human, we leave them after that conversation feeling a little better or a little worse. There are no net neutral interactions. Your mission statement should not be my mission statement, but I would encourage all of us to reflect on some of these questions and think about how we can bring more light, more life, and more Jesus through grace and truth to every interaction with another to leave them in a more positive place afterwards.

Why I Believe: Chet Bandy

Today’s reading is Psalm 6.

I’m a little embarrassed to say when reflecting and preparing on this topic of “Why I Believe” I struggled a bit. I’m blessed to have been born into a Christian home with great parents who told me about God and Jesus at a young age, took me to Sunday school and church, and sent me to vacation Bible school amongst many other things to help establish my faith early. A friend of mine and someone who I would also consider a mentor, Tom Lipscomb, says that his mom would comment about certain things, “I know it in my knower.” Many believers have had a fork in the road moment where they remember turning to God when they had no where else to go, and they felt God save them, renew their soul, and rescue them from these challenges. This is similar to what David describes throughout Psalm 6 and especially in Psalm 6:1-2, Psalm 6:4, and Psalm 6:9. In fact, the titling in my Bible above Psalm 6 is O Lord, Deliverer My Life. For me though, I’ve never not believed… it’s more like Tom’s mom said, “I know it in my knower.”

Some reading this may say if there was never a time you didn’t believe and the flip was switched so to speak, how do you really know it’s true and God is real? I will say there was a period of time around my college years when I did reflect and think to myself, “Do I really believe the Bible and what I’ve heard all these years? Or is this just something I’ve always taken as true because my parents believe and not let my mind question or think otherwise? Do I really believe myself?” As I let my mind become more open to wondering if it was true and become more cognizant to the information I was taking in, I continued to come back to what I heard and the truth I read in the Word. Yes, there are the questions that science brings up about creation, evolution, and the miracle of the virgin birth. But, science is changing every day. Things that were believed to be scientifically true for years and years are being disproven, revised, and changed. Heck, we still don’t know fully how all the facets of the human body works today, let alone the truth about things that happened hundreds and thousands and even millions of years before any one of us were even born. I believe most of what science says just describes the way God engineered and did things. Science and God are not in opposition necessarily. For other things where science and God don’t seem to jive, I arrive at two conclusions. First, how do we know the so-called science is true? Again, science is being revised constantly. Secondly, some things we have to just say happened by the miracle of God because He is God and can do what we can’t.. and can’t even explain for that matter (Romans 11:33-34, Isaiah 55:8-9). More than anything, the love of Jesus and His grace on the cross continued to be a magnet that would not let me go away. Again, I just “know it in my knower.”

While there hasn’t been a watershed moment where I can say I first believed, I can say that almost daily I become more and more convicted as to the truth of God’s existence and the Bible. It happens when I see someone decide to break the chains of their past and the shackles of their sin and lead a changed life once they discover the love and grace of Jesus. It’s seeing the beauties of a gorgeous sunrise or sunset and looking up at the stars and moon and thinking, “There’s no way all this could happen by chance.” It’s seeing the birth of my children and reflecting on the fact that life is truly a miracle. Just think about all the things that have to go right for a baby to be born and the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of chemical interactions and nerves firings, all of which happen simultaneously without us thinking about them, just for us to live. It’s seeing how something that seemed terrible at the time like a relationship split or job loss years later proves out to be a great thing by finding an even greater relationship or career path. It’s how what seemed to be a small and insignificant decision at the time later turns out to change the trajectory of your life such as my decision to pursue finance instead of orthodontics not knowing that years later I would lose fine motor skills in my hand. How do these things happen without a greater power? How do they happen without God? My simple conclusion..they don’t. When you believe and develop awareness and look for it, you can see God’s hand on nearly everything…eventually. For other things where we never see it ourselves, we just simply have to trust Him, and I’m confident we will find out in Heaven that there was in fact a great purpose we just couldn’t see.

What is the greatest miracle though and the reason why I believe? It’s the grace of Him sending His Son Jesus to die on the cross. As Andy Stanley described in a recent series I listened to, when we as created beings question and doubt our Creator in any way, we deserve eternal punishment. But, God did what man cannot even fathom doing if we were God.

“For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Romans 5:7-8

Before some of us believed while we were rejecting Him, and while some us believed yet are still sinning by the day, hour, and even minute now…He suffered and died in an unimaginable and gruesome way for you and for me. Knowing what we would do and are still doing today..He did it anyway. It’s that sacrifice and His unfathomable grace which restores and renews me when I mess up constantly to bring me back together with Him..that’s why I believe.

Please take a few minutes to watch this lyric video. I promise…you won’t regret it.

https://youtu.be/C2U7ffUM5Ec

The Word

Whether you realize it or not, you probably have a lot of questions going through your mind right now. You are not alone. Every single human being on this Earth has questions. One big one is…”Am I going to make it through this?” It could be a medical issue, financial hardship, challenges with your business or career during Covid, or family/relational challenges to name few. During these times many of us in the U.S. are asking when the racial tensions and other political turmoil will end. When we will get past this as a country? Again, most questions come back to am I going to be ok, or will we be ok?

There is great news in that every one of these questions can be answered in the Word of God.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were mad through Him, and without Him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

John 1:1-5

The Word is Jesus. He has always existed. The book of Genesis gives us the first indication of the triune God the Father, God the Holy Spirit, and God the Son (the Word).

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness..

Genesis 1:26

Note the words “our likeness.” From the beginning of creation, Jesus was there. God knew man would sin before He made us and due to sin would have all the problems and questions we have today, so He had a plan and answer. His plan and answer was and still is Jesus.

He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, yet the world did not know Him.

John 1:10

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1:14

Jesus came down from His throne in Heaven willingly and without sin to die for you and me the cross. Because of this and His Resurrection on Easter Sunday, the answer to every question is that all who believe in Him will be ok and get through whatever challenge we are facing. However painful our life on this Earth is, it is brief and we will spend eternity with Him without any of the burdens we face while here.

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.

Revelation 21:4

As I was writing this I was thinking, and you may be thinking the same while you are reading this, “Wow..there is a lot of Scripture here and not much other writing/dialogue.” Well..that’s really the point. Every answer we are looking for is found in the Word. The Bible is called the Word because it all points to Him, the Word. It is not just God’s story and love letter to us, but it is our story because we are all part of God’s plan through Jesus.

When you get down to it, I believe every human being is looking for truth whether they know it or not. John 1:14 above says Jesus came in grace and truth. Note that grace comes before truth here and every time it’s mentioned in the Bible. I’m thankful that grace and forgiveness came before truth, and we should follow Jesus example in our lives. When we, and others, dig into the Word we find the truth and answers we are looking for and we fall in love with Him. We find that truth and love in His grace. Then, we can’t get enough of it.

I’ll wrap up with these 2 questions…

How can you be in the Word more to fall deeper in love with Him?
How can you introduce someone else to the Word who is struggling and needs the grace and truth only He can give right now?

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:7