The Gospel According To John

The Gospel According to John Devotional Studies by Raymond McGough CHAPTERS 1-2

Copyright © 2009 Raymond McGough Disciples of Jesus Ministry www.discipleofjesussite.com

The Eternal Word Jesus Christ the Son of God 1:1-5 (1) The apostle speaks of the beginning when the Word was but I

believe he is asking me to look further back than that. John is thinking of a time when there was no time simply because the Word is timeless as the title to this section suggests. At this moment my spirit within me is constricted because of my physical body. I am limited to what I can do because I can only be in the one place at the one time. I cannot be in two places at the same time. Impossible. However; before He became Incarnate the Word was everywhere .There was not a time when He did not exist. A fact that is beyond my understanding because I am made from the dust even although my soul has been reignited through God the Holy Spirit and I have been born again. My spirit has been rebirthed. This great evangelist John the apostle because that was one of his many gifts from the Lord wants me to think further than myself because who he is writing of is the greatest Person than there will ever be. He who made me. At one time stood outside of me. The gospel is all about the Word Jesus Christ and here John is speaking of his preincarnate state before I was born and everyone else. Jesus Christ the eternal Word Son of God from everlasting to everlasting in His radiant glorious glory that outshines the sun the moon the stars and the universe reigned with His Father God and God the Holy Spirit beyond the universe, time, space and history. After all He was the very one who placed them in position. How awesome! How incredible. What I see in front of me is something of gigantic cosmic proportions deeply profound beyond my tiny earthly intellect. He who made and rules the cosmos was now coming to make a cosmos change to the comos by coming in Person to the world I live in. The very Person of the Son of God He who made me was coming to save me and countless others who are my brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus. John writes these words so that God the Holy Spirit can draw my soul and spirit deeper into the very presence of the living God all praise and honour must come from my tongue my heart my strength and mind in exaltation of His glorious majestic

radiant Personality who does this for me because of His love towards me which is undeserved and the rest of the saints only because He chooses to do so. Hallelujah!! I notice that John does not take credit for what he writes here because he does not mention his name the early church tradition accredits it to him. Nevertheless in this I see the humility of my Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ who is also the Lord of John the apostle and evangelist who guides him in the writing of this account of the gospel. Talking about humility the greatest act of humility is the Son of God coming to the earth as a man and leaving his glory behind as one who is God absolutely breathe taking as it would have been for this great godly man. When John speaks of the Word as a title of my Lord in this account of the gospel he is thinking of his divine deity the preincarnate God before becoming a man. He is all that God the Father is being His Son. I must never lose sight of this. Being the Word Jesus Christ is the ultimate identity and expression of God His Father in heaven He is the very stamp and image of God the Father. He is the final Word to mankind those who looked upon Him as a man saw God the Father but did not see that because their eyes were veiled but not all of them. He is the utopia of all that I seek and desire from my Lord included all my brothers and sisters who are in Christ. Amen. When God spoke the universe into being and everything which that entails the Word was there with Him. Now God speaks through the living Word Jesus Christ His Son to all of humanity in the gospel as given to the apostle John. Jesus Christ is depicted here as the living Word and so that part of deity is exclusively His as the Word but it is not the full deity or the Godhead as it is known. He is known as the Word not all of the Godhead as the second Person of the trinity. I am using words to try to convey to my heart as well as my mind the absolute greatness of God without being proud and to stop pride from taking over my heart because then these words would become empty and meaningless to me. I want to know God so that I can become like Him. In order that I may please Him. The only way to do that is to study His word as I am doing with the help of God the Holy Spirit.

Without God I would be nothing God is everything to me. He is the One who made me and that is precisely the point. John speaks of Jesus here in his position of deity as the Word preincarnate outside of the universe time and space. But in his first epistle he is the Word of God as a man and God. The very essence of the gospel. He is the gospel the good news of God the Father to mankind. Embodied in the Person of Jesus of Nazareth now the Christ. I find evidence for this in these words of John.cf.I Jn.1:1-2. ( That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life-2 the life was manifested…)…God and man on earth but God concealed in human flesh that many human eyes will not see. Again my Lord is called the Word of God in John’s Revelation from my Lord and his Lord in the last book of the Bible of the New Testament as the risen glorified exalted Lord. But that is after he had been on earth as a man and the gospel of John is first about Jesus being a man while he walked upon the earth. His title the Word of God is forever. Cf.Rev.19:13(.He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God.) The Word will live forever. How astonishing and incredulous this is to me a totally awesome concept that is beyond my earthly reasoning to even begin to try to understand and if I did He would not be God in the way He should be. I digress, at this moment the apostle John wants me to focus on the incredible glorious greatness of the Word who is the Son of God while He stands outside of the universe and eternity waiting to break in at the right time which had been planned before anything was. How can I as a human grasp the understanding of this which is way beyond earthly wisdom it is too great for me but I love my Lord and it is on His understanding I lean on. When I do that I will be all that He wants me to be in this life. Praise God my Lord. Hallelujah!!! The evangelist draws my attention to something of vital importance to my spirit the point being God was with God. God the Word a designation for my Lord who is also Jesus Christ. He is not speaking of two gods John talks of one God. The Son was with the Father Here I see two individuals one a Son the other a Father but they are different to humanity because they are one God. Further on in his narrative of the gospel the author makes this point quite

clear.cf.Jn.17:5. A valid central characteristic is made plain to me here that the Word who is the Christ was not only with His Father He had his own exclusive glory peculiarly his which he left behind for my sake. A great and mighty glory the Shekinah transcendent glory that was rightfully His A sobering thought my Lord came to earth in obedience to His Father. Jesus Christ who is God the Son is described here as the Word is with God. He is standing or sitting with one who is God, standing or sitting are only human expressions to describe closeness of the Word who is God Jesus Christ to one who is also God. The Word using John’s terminology is the Son of God who is in close conjunction with God who is his Father The Father looks to the Son and the Son looks to the Father both are peculiarly God exclusively in their own right and they enjoy harmony with one another as Father and Son with the third Person of the trinity although He is not mentioned by name nevertheless He is here as He has always been God the Holy Spirit enjoying love and sweet communion with the Son and the Father. He expects the same from me with my attitude of heart and mind towards my brothers and sisters who are in Christ and towards the lost. To love them as He loves me. Central to this passage in the evangelist’s heart and mental spiritual know how as gifted to him from the Holy Spirit is the fact that the Word Jesus Christ is the gateway into the very presence of God which includes Himself the Son of God. He is the Chief cutting edge of the salvation he is now ready to bring to those whom He had made from the very primitive beginning of mankind but they were not like that until after the fall. Man had been made in and through the Son of God in the image of God until they had fallen into sin. Now He was coming to save, rescue and restore them to his Father’s side. I am indebted to God because He has done this for me because I could not do anything not even for myself it is all of God His love, compassion, mercy, and longsuffering towards me knows no end as this beginning of the prologue eloquently points out to my soul from the pen of the evangelist a servant of the Word who is God I should also say that God the Father is in agreement with His Son that He should come to earth in order to help mankind the Son was not commanded to go He volunteered because He is of the same substance of his Father and like Him loved man and continues to do so. Words escape me in order to describe what God means to me. He is everything as He was to the apostle John imprisoned on the Island of Patmos in his later

years because of his obedience to the Lord. I want to be obedient just like he was. And more (2) Unlike me the Word had no beginning He existed and exists and as the Son of God has always been with God His Father beyond eternity Do I understand this the answer is no not with my limited understanding as that of a man but to learn and know of Him who gave me my being I have to study his Word in Scripture so that I might come to know more of Him in my heart. I believe that the Word as God can be clearly seen in the Genesis account in the first book of the Old Covenant at chapter one and the first verse. Cf.Gen.1:1.John speaks of the Word as being God although He uses the past tense was that is only because He is coming into the world as a man relying on God the Holy Spirit to enable him to do all that God the Father looks for from him. He cannot use his own power that would mean he would not be truly man. But He is still God he has relinquished his power for a season. John writes of the Word as being God was God a description of my Lord and God Jesus Christ clearly indicating that when the author Moses declares in the first book of the Bible of the Old Testament.Gen.1:1 (In the beginning God….) My belief is that what Moses would have me understand with the help of God the Holy Spirit on his behalf and mine is the fact God the Father and God the Son is on view. Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He is God. This being the case I can with confidence say the Father is God. God can only come from God. There is in a sense no earthly mind on view here it is all about God that is the subject matter not a dry as dust exercise because it is about the living God. Amen and Hallelujah! The living God! This is reinforced further down in the first chapter of Genesis at verse 26 when God says Let us make man in our own image. Plural and not singular and there are more references on the pages of the Old Testament that corroborates and give evidence to support what has been said here. Praise the God and Father of my Lord Jesus Christ for the authenticity of Holy Scripture that testifies to the one and only true holy triune God and not only that alone because his works can be seen everywhere (3) Not only have I been made through Him that is the Word Jesus Christ my Lord everything has and continues to be brought into existence through Him an on going process. Jesus my Lord is the person through who all things exist and are being brought into being. cf. (Col.1:16.17).Paul adds more to what John is saying here and as far as I am concerned just as valid Note through Him things have been made in

heaven and on earth they are visible and invisible. They are thrones and Dominions, principalities or powers. They are all for Him. So that everything that was made good and evil was made first of all through him the origin of evil did not come from Him but that is how it ended and they will all come under him. A mighty awesome powerful divine power that has already being unleashed upon the world in and through God the Holy Spirit To add more weight to what he has already said John reiterates the point for good measure. (.Jn1:3 without Him nothing was made that was made….)Jesus Christ in His very being is God and nothing will distract from that the very essence of who He is in His matchless Character. The point being creativity belongs to God which has always been the case who made everything through his Son whom the writer of the fourth gospel describes as the Word otherwise known as Jesus Christ. It is also important to realize that this creativity will continue under the Godhead. I think of it in this fashion before the beginning God at the beginning God while in the process of beginning God after the initial beginning God from everlasting to everlasting continuing to be God. Present tense at all times applicable to God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Spirit three different individual persons but one God. Who is my Lord and my God whom I can call my Father because of the work and person of my Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ of which John will write of later on in this his narrative of the Gospel of Jesus Christ whom he describes as the Word in his prologue. What I find totally incredible is that in the first five verses of the prologue there is no mention of a mere mortal but God has chosen such to write this passage about Himself and the Word His Son Jesus Christ. He Himself could have wrote it but He chose someone whom He had chosen for His Son before the foundation of the created universe to do this because those whom He loves He has chosen to be a people of his Son and of Himself which He is the Father of .Love being the key. (4) The evangelist John the apostle describes the Word as being life and light. It is in the Word Jesus Christ that I find life and light. John is not only thinking of the ordinary physical life He breathes into me coupled with that the writer is thinking of the spiritual life he brings to me for those who have been reborn in the Spirit for eternity and this will unfold as I read on. I have not only a physical earthly life as I journey on because the Holy Spirit who is in me gives me a quality to my life that I would not have otherwise. He gives meaning to it. I possess this spiritual life only because it was given to me in and through the Word who is identified later on to be Jesus Christ and becau8se I trust

Him as my Lord and God. It is a free gift of God his Father towards me. Jesus Christ his Son is the gift of grace to me. God’s unmerited favour to the world of mankind it cannot be earned. The gift is His Son whom John describes as the Word and later on as Jesus of Nazareth and as the Christ who had come into the world. Life and light are strictly themes that John uses to depict the cardinal truths of the importance of the work and Person of my Lord and Saviour the Word Jesus Christ. They are terms that belong only to this apostle in his usage of these expressions and meaning behind them as guided by God the Holy Spirit. I can see this in his very First Epistle.1Jn.5: 20. (And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.) However; at this moment John is still describing Him as the Word. He is now life and light to men. As described in the fourth gospel from the hand of John the apostle. I said earlier on what John meant life to mean as I understand it as guided by the Spirit of God. Now I turn my attention to what John means when he says that the Word is life and light to mankind. What does he exactly mean when he describes the Word as well as being life he is also light? Because He is the Eternal Life He is the Light to the souls of mankind that had been lost in the fall of mankind as described in the first three chapters of Genesis. The time had come to free them from darkness and only the Word can do this not only for me it is for the whole of mankind. The evangelist John speaks on the subject further on in the narrative. Jn.8:12 ( Then Jesus spoke to them again,saying,I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.) The eternal life that I have belongs to my risen Lord it is not exclusively mine it is also for the rest of his sheep who are still in the world who are at this moment in the world of the lost the light that shines in me will also shine in them because He knows who his sheep are and it is my responsibility to allow Him to guide me to them. So that they can know of His love for them as I know of His love for me. (5)The light will continue to shine forever He will not only shine in the brilliance of his own Person He will also shine through His own people as He does. The darkness will never overcome the light he will go on forever with his people in an incredible phenomenon of brilliance and light that will stretch over and diffuse the darkness for ever. All I can say is praise God that He should do this for mere mortals like me and could only be done by Him John quotes the Son of God Jesus Christ

using these words and as I have said He is God my God.Jn.12:46.( I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness..)How great and wonderful is the love of God to me earthly words can never really describe the indescribable no wonder He says lean on my understanding and not your own. Not about knowledge it is about me knowing Him as a great and wonderful God who loves the whole of His created order the universe, heaven and earth and the pinnacle of it all mankind. The great and glorious God full of majesty and truth from everlasting to everlasting omnipotent and omniscient the eternal God. Father. Son and Holy Spirit the one triune God who loves the creativity of His hands. John the Man from God

John.1:6-13.

(6) The man the apostle writes of here is none other than John the Baptist but that is what he would be known as later on what I believe the writer is pointing out is the fact this man would be born into the world just like other men in the sense he would come out of his mother’s womb and he would be born into the world. The difference between him and other men is that he had been sent from God. Specially chosen for a very important task that had been foreordained before the foundations of all that there is. As far as the writer is concerned it is not as much as about the man but the task set before him who he is is not as relevant as the work that is set before him as one who is a man. He was conceived in and through God the Holy Spirit but still remained a man. The Holy Spirit would control his life the difference between him and other men.cf.Lk.1:13.15. The vital ingredient for successful victorious Christian living is to let the Holy Spirit control my life and enable me to live my life that pleases Jesus and his Father in heaven. A prerequisite for all my brothers and sisters in Christ.(7) Before he baptized anyone in water John’s primary function was to witness and testify to the Light. that had already come into the world. Witness is about what someone has already seen with their own eyes, They saw it so they witnessed it. At this juncture John had not yet seen the Light. John while calling for repentance and baptizing in the river Jordan would declare to the crowds that the Light was coming so that when the Light finally came they would believe what John said , concerning Him. John is the herald of good news heralding in the King who is my Lord known to the crowds at that time as Jesus of Nazareth but who is

Jesus Christ the Son of God. I believe then that you could call John the first evangelist of the New Testament or indeed of the Bible in its entirety. He is the messenger of the gospel of Jesus Christ the good news embodied in the Word who is Jesus Christ the Light that shines and continues to shine into the soul and has shone and shines in mine. John is not the Light he is a man sent by God the Father to tell the good news that He had sent His Son into the world and John was preparing the hearts of His people before His Son came amongst them as man concealing his identity as God in the flesh because of His mercy towards them anyone seeing God would be cosummed with fire because of their sin. The apostle is making the point that I should understand although John has been brought into the world for the very purposes of God nevertheless he is still man a special man in the eyes of God. But that diminishes after He has declared that the Light is coming although he still calls for the crowds to repent and be baptized in the Jordan River and that he is not that Light. Not that John is not important but against the Son of God it pales into total insignificance. He is a man the Light is God. John the Baptist would be elated in his spirit and soul to know God in the special relationship that he had with Him while here on earth he never forgot his place and why God had sent him and the message he was to convey to mankind. I remember John speaking of himself as the day of the Lord was drawing closer. I must decrease and he must increase. Depicted here in the words of John the Baptist and not just his words his actions too is the action of humbleness belonging to a great man of God beheaded by King Herod because he spoke out against the fact that he was sleeping with his brother’s wife. He definitely knew himself to be man but more importantly God was the centre of his earthly life. A lesson on what I should be focused on.. (8)John the apostle underlines the mission that God had given to John the Baptist he had been sent to testify and proclaim in word by mouth to the vast crowds who came out to the desert places in the wilderness to see him and hear what he had to say. He spoke to them about a Great Light that was soon to descend upon them the Lord Himself. I do not believe that any of them could envisage God’s Son coming to the earth as a man because in their thinking that would mean two gods instead of one totally alien to the religious thought of the day. They were right in the fact that God is one because theirs was a monotheistic religion but what they failed to realize was nothing is impossible for God

If they had looked a little closer into the Old Testament Scriptures they would have seen that it referred to the plural and not the singular because they did not it made it very hard for them to understand such a concept even to this day and they are still trying to live by the rules of the law. The prophet Isaiah predicted that a Great Light would come and shine upon those who walk in darkness and has already shone upon them and continues to shine. He it is who has given me eternal life not only for me but for others too. This is the Light that John the Baptist cries out too the crowds who had gathered around him. The plurality of Father and Son can be found in the Psalms. Pss.110: 1( The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at My right hand, Till I make Your enemies Your footstool.) Obviously there are not two Lords on view here only one Lord Although the text would suggest to the contrary. On the premises it does not directly speak of the numeral two There is no denying the plural but I believe it exists in God the Father being in His Son and his Son being in Him but separate as Father and Son Each of the same substance. The difficulty I believe is the fact that I am human and God is not and if I was to bring God down to my earthly rational mind He would cease to be God. An extreme view to those who do not know God. Particularly to those who do not want to know. But that is their choice no matter how bleak The Light is only for them who will accept Him for who He is the Son of God. (9) The true Light that comes from God is for me and the whole of mankind.. What they do with it is their responsibility I know I have accepted into my heart even though there are those who will reject the true Light .It is their responsibility, not mine. The true Light which is Jesus Christ my Lord gives light to every man that comes into the world as He has done with me. There are no exceptions all are given the light. The proof of this is once again found in the book of Isaiah the prophet of the Old Covenant. Regarding this very important benefit towards mankind including me because I am part of mankind. God had this to say to the prophet Isaiah speaking of God the Son he said this.Isa.49:6.( I will also give You as a light to the Gentiles, That You should be My salvation to the ends of the earth.) I am a Gentile who has tasted the salvation of the Lord and I still taste it. (10) From a mighty statement concerning the true Light and who He is the writer casts me down into the very depths of darkness that which is not light.. To know the true Light is to accept Him from knowledge that comes to the heart from the true Light Himself and I

have accepted the knowledge from Him. The darkness that I speak of is not mine but that of the world and how it reacts towards its maker in a total irrational manner complete in its danger towards itself almost touching the self destruct button. Man has chosen to ignore the One who has made them and by making that choice does not know Him. It is the same to day men and women have the choice to either choose God or reject Him I had the same choice to either accept his call on my life or reject it and am I glad I accepted. The choice is there for me all of the time to serve Him wherever He would send me. (11) I am a Gentile Christian but it was to His own people that the Word Jesus Christ came to first .He was born as a Palestinian Jew and it was to the Jews He arrived when He was born into this world. The extraordinary circumstances of his birth were that his own people did not receive Him as Lord. Yet that is what He is. I will never know how grieved and sad that He and His Father must have been at this time to see this happen and continue to happen. From my human point of view is the fact that He and his Father knew from the beginning that this is what would happen and in my finite wisdom I will never understand with my limited earthly view. It is enough as long as God gives breathe to mankind He and only He can change them into accepting the gospel of His Son Jesus Christ.Hallelujah!!It was nothing to do with me when the Holy Spirit changed my course and He can do it for others. (12) Received refers to them who have accepted God’s gracious invitation to receive His Son Jesus Christ as Lord as I have done and because of this act towards God not because of anything in me I have become a child of God the Father. I like many others have not seen Jesus Christ in the flesh but because I have believed in his name and He is my Lord I am a child of God the Father. I have been given that right and authority because it is the authority of Jesus Christ my Lord. The great apostle Paul had this to say on this very important subject which is for the whole of the human race Jews and Gentiles Jews first and then Gentiles.Gal.3:26.( For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.) The whole thing is centred in God comes from God seen in His Son Jesus Christ my Lord and God the Holy Spirit. Saved and unsaved like it or not God is interested in His world. Which leads me to a fitting conclusion for this section. (13) I have been born again not of blood not again by the will of the flesh becoming an earthly baby not because of the will of man but because it is the sovereign will of God my Father in heaven that I should be spiritually reborn again simply because He loves me. There are no

other words that can describe this they can only be found in the Lord. On this the apostle Peter said, 1,Pet.1:23,(….having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever.)

The Word becomes a human being as a man 1:14-18. (14) God the Son now becomes a man. My mind finds this a very difficult and complex idea because I am a mere mortal with limited understanding, that, does not mean I do not accept it as being true because I do Jesus Christ is my Lord. It is awesome the gap between my earthly mind and the mind of one who is God because nothing can bridge the chasm between the uncreated mind and the made mental faculty. He is God and will always be God. To become a man Jesus had to become flesh. The substance of the human body literally like me but without sin. The Son of God had now become incarnate in the body of a man, how am I to respond to such wonderful news because it is indeed wonderful in fact it is totally over whelming to my mind body and soul and my response should be is to love him with the whole of my life. The apostle Paul corroborates what John is speaking on here, Gal.4:4 Jesus Christ is truly a real physical human male. A man. (But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law,) Is it so unbelievable that He who made me could not become a man Himself when it would suit the divine purpose of the Godhead as now I know it did and He became man for my sake with one noticeable difference with out sin. Is there anything impossible for God? All things are possible with God but not with men. Jesus the Son of God lived among us as a man. John is looking back on my Lord’s early life from the time of his earthly birth. He is baffled by the fact that he came into the world as an ordinary man which of course he was not The Psalmist speaks of himself as being fearfully and wonderfully made how much more does that apply to the Lord Jesus Christ who is the agent through whom all things are made and continues to be Who Himself was not made but continues to be God and now man. It is as if I was walking in Galilee, perhaps talking to a couple of strangers and Jesus would pass by me and I would not notice. The Son of God walking by me veiled in human flesh. Very possible because thousands walked by him and failed to recognize who he was. My God

the Lord Jesus Christ walking with the crowds as a man. He who is God had relinquished His powers as God for the season when he would be man. He would have no power of his own Jesus would have to rely on God the Holy Spirit to enable him to live a life of obedience to His Father in heaven. Jesus chose to live and dwell with us for a time as a man but still God with out his awesome power. I am perplexed with this because my finite mind which was made through the very one I speak of is not capable of understanding such a concept it is indeed too great for me as an ordinary mortal. But my spirit leaps for joy because of the love He gives out to me. I too must love him with the whole of my life and all my being until He calls me home as He will. Praise God. However; there were those who saw his glory and John was one of them he uses the plural, we. There was more than one of them. Beheld, means a continuing presence. God’s glorious presence is always there I do not always feel it because if there is something that is unconfessed in me then I certainly will not know of his divine presence until I have put that right. I need to desire his presence because God is always after me but He wants me to pursue Him so that He knows of my serious intent towards Him. The glory that is being spoken of here is more than earthly glory. After its initial appearance it fades but not this glory. Isaiah the prophet had this to say on the glory of the Lord as revealed to him and prophesied through him for a later day that day I am now in. Isa.40:5. (The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, And all flesh shall see it together; For the Mouth of the Lord has spoken.) Strong’s #1391 gives a superb illustration of this. The NT doxa becomes splendor, radiance, and majesty centred in Jesus. Here doxa is the majestic, absolute perfection residing in Christ evidenenced by the miracles he performed and I would like to add a footnote to Strong’s comments not only that. This was seen in the method of his birth conceived in and through God the Holy Spirit The angel of the Lord glorified the Lord when He spoke to the shepherds speaking to them and informing them that the Lord had now been born in Bethlehem as a male child. He would be the Saviour of the world who is Christ the Lord. I notice the term used is the present tense. My Saviour and Lord the Lord Jesus Christ is always with me. He is Christ the Lord and there is no other Lord. All of the writers of the New Testament testify and agree to this, corroborate, and concur together putting their weight behind this mighty and glorious declaration the fact that Jesus who was known for a while as a Nazarene

is in His true identity the Saviour Christ the Lord. I wholeheartedly agree and say, Amen. The only begotten of the Father.I ask myself what does this mean? Only suggests to me there can only be one .Jesus Christ is exclusively the Son of God. There are no other sons. He and His Father God are of the same substance and though He is not mentioned here so too God the Holy Spirit. As a Son in His substance the exclusiveness belongs to the Word who is Jesus Christ my Lord. Nobody else has the same substance of God certainly not human flesh although there are those indirectly would like to think so particularly scholars and theologians who set themselves the target to discredit God. In their eyes they may not think of themselves as gods but they act as if they were. Of course they are entitled to their views just as I am. Conclusively in my belief the Word the Son of God Jesus Christ the Lord who is my God is of the same substance of His Father God as too is God the Holy Spirit and there is none other of the same substance three individuals one God .Hallelujah!!! John concludes the verse by ascribing to the Word Incarnate Jesus Christ grace and truth The Word is full of grace and truth. Jesus has in abundance in his character these vital necessities as the Son of God because He is going to give them to the whole world and I am part of the world whom he has given it too. Grace as I believe in the Bible context means the giving of one self with out thinking of a reward. The grace I have received from God is in his Son Jesus Christ I do not warrant his favour and mercy that which has been extended to me through the Son of God. I cannot earn it. I am unworthy of it and undeserving of it. This is the unmerited favour of God towards me as made visible in His Son Jesus Christ which I have gladly accepted and continue to do so always remembering that it is about the Son of God my Lord. This is the grace in which He has in full abundance and extends it to others but the passage is all about the Word becoming Incarnate Jesus Christ my Lord Grace belongs to Him. Quote: The grace of God is supremely revealed and given in the person and work of Jesus Christ.Jesus was not only the beneficiary of God’s grace (Lk.2:40.) but he was also its very embodiment (Jn.1:14.) bringing it to mankind for salvation (Tit: 2.11). By his death and resurrection. Jesus restored broken fellowship between God and his people, both Jew and Gentile. The only way of salvation for any person is through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. (Acts.15:11.) The Hayford Bible Handbook p632.End of Quote.

The clause speaks of grace and truth the truth is about who God is in Jesus Christ His grace unfolds before me every day and I want to know more of his truth who He is as God. My God. I find the evidence and substance of his truth as one who is God the Son my Lord later on in John’s account of the gospel of Jesus Christ The apostle records these words spoken by Jesus to a question asked of him by Thomas in one of his post resurrection appearances. Jn.14:6. (I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.) And if I needed further proof which I do not all I need to do is look at the last conversation between my Lord and Pilate on earth.Jn.18:37. (Pilate therefore said to Him,” Are you a king then?” Jesus answered,” You say rightly that I am a King. For this cause I was born and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.”) Absolute truth of God in God the Son. (15) John who is the voice in the wilderness and not John the apostle now is speaking or addressing the crowds who had come out to hear what he had to say. Speaking of the birth of Christ as a man the Baptist testifies or witnesses to the fact that the one he is addressing them of is already here. John the Baptist is the Herald declaring the coming of the Lord. I have no idea of how John the Baptist felt or thought but He must have known he had been chosen by God for this very special honour to announce the coming of God’s Son like a voice crying in the wilderness the term I believe would be shouting .Shouting with a loud voice enabled to do so with God the Holy Spirit like the prophets of the Old Testament John the voice in the wilderness had been filled with the Holy Spirit from his birth nevertheless it did not make him any less remarkable. A remarkable man. Because of the fact that God shone through all that he did including his weakness. The weakness I refer to is when he had been imprisoned by Herod he sent a few of his followers to ask Jesus if He was the One the Messiah. Very easy to be critical when you are not in the brother or sister’s shoes. I am not going to be critical it’s the easiest thing for me to do. What I would say is that I am of the flesh and I can do nothing without the help of God the Holy Spirit and when I criticize a brother or sister let God convict me and discipline me into true repentance. Taking the necessary action that He would have me take best of all let Him who is my merciful God guard my tongue and heart. John knows he is the King’s messenger and he makes it quite clear to the crowds that had gathered about him who he is the one God

had sent before the coming of His Son to prepare and soften the hearts of God’s people in order that they would receive the Lord. It is not the ministries or whether I am a Leader that matters it is how my heart is before the Lord .John the Baptist is a great illustration of humility he is happy to stand aside because the one whom he stands aside for is my Lord and his Lord A few years back I was put to the test as we all are when I had been preaching and teaching in a former church and the theme I had expounded on what was more important in my heart the gifts that He had given to me or anything else I had put before him. One of my sons’s who had graduated from Strathclyde University. A few years later suffered a nervous breakdown, not that I am alone in this. All of us are tested to see what our faith consists of what kind of substance it is made of .Do I really truly believe in the supernatural power of my Lord or is it lip service? God was looking into my heart A week later my Lord said to me that my work was finished in that church I phoned my pastor and informed him of what the Lord had said to me and that I was leaving and at that time I and my wife had no clear indication of where we would be worshipping. Difficult and hard very much so for both us but God looks upon the heart and in this case ours more specifically mine and there were changes that had to be done that only my Lord can do Radical revolutionary changes that only He could do but I had to be obedient and agree to do what He had in mind for me. Changes that are on going. To help me to grow and mature spiritually less of me and more of Christ. As soon as the Lord spoke to me and after I had spoken to Irene my wife I immediately phoned him and he asked me to come the following week so that my Irene and I would have a valedictory service There were quite a number who did not us to leave but we pointed out that God had something else in mind for Irene and I to do my pastor was a little upset but after a little time he and I have been reconciled together through the working of God the Holy Spirit we are friends once again as well as brothers in Christ and we keep in close contact some times going out together for a coffee. He can see the difference that God the Holy Spirit is making in me and remarked on how glad he is to see God’s change in me and my prayer is that it will continue Nobody can live my faith for me that is my responsibility towards my Saviour my God and my Lord Jesus Christ.

John the Baptist would not have been John the Baptist had he not been obedient to the voice of God the Holy Spirit within him. There is no such thing as a passive Christianity. My God Jesus Christ came to earth in obedience to His Father in heaven and went and died, nailed to a wooden cross, and was raised by His Father. No passiveness there Actions and words together in my obedience to my Lord clearly indicate to the world at large that my God is very much alive. I see this in the life of John the Baptist importantly the apostle only calls him by his first name in the text. He is John Who with the heavy weight of his words directs my heart and mind to He who is the most important of all. The Son of God Jesus Christ is now set to appear on the scene as a man but underneath his skin He is God. My God. Not only my God the God of all my brothers and sisters in the Lord His people. I note the voice in the wilderness who is John speaks to the crowd giving them an indirect clue to the true identity of the man he is representing but regretfully they miss it. “ He comes after me is preferred before me, for He was before me” After and before me. You cannot be before when you come afterwards physically impossible for human kind. I look at the words” preferred before “ A clear indication that the man who would soon be standing before them is more than a man.. Before he became a man Jesus as the Son of God which He still is was omnipresent in other words He was everywhere but now He is limited because His Spirit is imprisoned inside His physical body and at the time could only be in the one place at any given time Is it any wonder that God says to me in His still small voice lean not on your own understanding and lean on mine. I can also find it in the Word of God the book of Proverbs of the Old Testament. Pr.3:5. These things are too wonderful for my human wisdom but I praise God not only because He loves me for the fact of who He is. The great and mighty God full of holiness and righteousness who continues to love me and His world full of honour, majesty, and glory the one triune God .Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Let every man, woman, and child bow of every nation before Him in the acceptable year of grace because He as God loves them. Before it is too late, that is why He sent His Son my Saviour and Lord the risen Christ. (16) I have received everything from God through His Son my Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ receiving that which I am undeserving of and not getting that which I deserve

Grace is the unmerited favour of God released to me in the faith I have in Jesus Christ as my Lord and God provided to me in and through God the Father through God the Holy Spirit working in me the Spirit of Christ. Christ my Lord is the unmerited favour of God with unlimitless supply He Himself embodies fully the benefits of unmerited favour His grace as He dispenses these benefits to His people. (17) In the Old Testament God gave the law to Moses to take down the mountain to His people but as I know from reading the Old Testament nobody could keep it and no one tried. It ended up being a ritual and a religious ceremony with no real meaning to the heart. I certainly cannot keep the law but because I have accepted the unmerited favour of my risen Lord God’s Son Jesus Christ and His Love and the fact I love Him He will enable and help me with God the Holy Spirit to serve Him. Jesus Christ is the gift of God the Father’s unmerited favour. He is that divine unmerited favour at this point in the flesh and always.. (18) The only person to have seen who God the Father is. Is his Son who lies upon His chest He has seen Him and declares it to the world Only God the Son can do this both equal in deity with the third Person of the Godhead. God the Holy Spirit. Each of the same substance the one triune God Magnificent and glorious to Behold.” Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty, All the saints adore thee.God in three Persons. Blessed Trinity “ The gospel according to John A voice thunders out in the wilderness Jn.1:19-28 (19) Previously in the chapter the apostle had spoken of a man that had been sent from God. He like my risen Lord had been born in and through God the Holy Spirit. The difference although sent from God was a man. My Lord was and is both God and man. John was a man Zacharias’s son was sent from God to tell the people that God’s Son the Messiah was coming and they were to prepare their hearts for his arrival From an early age as soon as Zacharias’s son John was able too he grew up in the desert not a normal habitation to grow up in but this he did under the Lord’s guidance cf.Luke.1:80. My own belief is that John would have learnt all that he would have needed to know from his father Zacharias because he belonged to the

priesthood of the Jewish religion. The Holy Spirit would have done the rest. Luke provided the evidence of the fact that John the Baptist grew up in the desert from his childhood days until it was time for the Lord to show him to his people Israel. This would explain why the authorities of the day would have no notification of what they believed to be the proper credentials that would allow the son of Zacharias to do what he was doing Human wisdom can be so often the obstacle that stops God from using someone but not in the case of John that was not allowed to happen. My own mind intellect, and thought patterns have to some degree conditioned by the wisdom of this world it would be foolish to think otherwise. Obviously John had been preaching in the desert and the peoples of the region had gone out to listen to what he had to say. The Jews had now got hold of the rumours of what the people had said concerning John and they I believe were angry with him. That he should have done this without any formal training or any kind of religious education under their authority It had not crossed their minds the fact that God’s choice was not influenced by what they thought and did. God is not influenced by anyone because He is God I continue to learn this. A sobering and sombre thought. The flesh is always carnal a fact I keep on learning. The question they ask of John is of a closed mind because they feel and think that he really should not be doing what he is active in. No formal training who does he think he is? An upstart. They had forgotten it is God who equips the people of his choice not theirs so too it was the same for John. When they said to John who are you? I believe there would have been a derisory tone too their voices. John would hear and see this and he being full of the Holy Spirit would give them the answer they least expected. The apostle speaks of the testimony of John because later on in the author’s narrative Jesus would speak of it. The voice that thundered in the desert cofesses to them I am not the Christ

I do not believe they asked the question openly but they thought it and John perceived what they were thinking of. (20) (21) They still fail to recognize who he is by stating who they think he is an a assumption based upon their own ideas and interpretation of the law and the prophets. I see this in the questions they ask of him are you Elijah or the prophet. What is uppermost in their minds is that the law and the prophetic word spoke of the coming of Elijah and then the prophet. It failed to dawn upon them that the voice in the wilderness would be that of a man chosen of God Here he stands before them incredible that they as priests and Levites who studied the law and the word of prophecy failed to grasp and understand what was happening in the midst of them. (22) I have no idea how they missed the point that John was making to them depending on what they had studied and their understanding of their own interpretation or even if they had studied the scripture that John tells them that he is the fulfillment of in the next verse. Certainly comes accros as being very rude and ignorant to the extreme the priests and the Levites give the impression that they know it all and John is doing this on his own accord nothing could be further from the truth. I can feel and hear their derision in the questions they ask of John in a sarcastic manner because they did not expect him to answer them but he did much to their chagrin and surprise they want to get the matter finished and concluded that will satisfy them and the Pharisees. (23) The priests and Levites want to put this to bed once and for all but for those supposedly to know all that was known of the law and the prophets at that time they did not seem to know very much. Much to their irritation and annoyance and not knowing certain scriptures of the Old Testament they found themselves at a great disadvantage in their conversation with John. I t was an uncomfortable time for them especially in front of the crowds who had gathered together .Presumed and assumed to their cost that it would be easy to deal with this fellow in the desert Again they seemed not to understand what John was saying of himself to them as being the embodiment and fulfillment of the prophecy spoken of him by the prophet Isaiah. It would seem they did not know of the passage that John quoted to them or they lacked the understanding of it. Cf. Isa.40:3(The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord; Make straight in the desert A highway for our God.)

I believe that the religious leaders of the Baptist’s day had limited their interpretation to an earthly understanding including the priests and the Levites the idea behind the thinking was that the Lord would come and throw out their oppressors the Romans and restore their lands to them. So John and the priests and the Levites would always be talking at cross purposes. They failed to understand because they could only think and speak of an earthly kingdom. The voice if they could only but see was pointing them to a spiritual and heavenly kingdom here now and eternity Many many peoples of the earth fail to recognize this to day and are hurling to a lost eternity as was the priests, the Levites, and Pharisees. (24) John the apostle identifies the Jews from which the priests and the Levites had been sent from as the Pharisees (25) The priests and Levites now realized that they were not going to stop John from fulfilling the purpose of the task that God had set before him. Had they listened to the voice of the wilderness who was indeed John the Baptist they would have repented of their sin and accepted Christ as their Saviour and Lord but they did not but chose the way of destruction. Men and women of high office religious or otherwise who do not repent of their sin including the most lowly working or not follow the same path to destruction in this list there are kings queens rulers prime ministers presidents and politicians. As there was then. They now commit a very grave error God’s judgment is now upon them because they blasphemed against the Holy Spirit who is working in the voice and life of John the son of Zacharias the priest. This can be seen in the fact that they question John about who authorized him to baptize. To ask if he was the Christ Elijah or the prophet was just a smoke screen to stop him from doing the Lord’s work. John had already discerned this in his spirit as revealed to him by the Spirit of God and his next words show they had indeed stepped into the abyss with their souls to go and belong to the devil. Their words and actions towards John illustrate the devil’s handiwork in their lives. Because if they do not know Christ they must know somebody and that could only be the devil I would like you to read the passage carefully and note that it is with their own determination and will they the priests and Levites decide on the course of action that they themselves have taken the choice was there for them to decide on and what they would say it was not forced upon them. Jesus Christ never forces himself on anyone who

does not want him. You either accept the love of God the Son and make him your Saviour and Lord who is Jesus the Christ as I have done or reject him there are no half measures. God knows the hearts of men are exceedingly wicked He should know because He made all of us.He knows my heart and he knows yours he knows whether you have decided for or against Him.Before I decided anything He already knew. God knew what was in the hearts of those who questioned John and through John’s voice finds them guilty sentenced them and condemned them to hell as He does with all who blaspheme against the Holy Spirit (26) My own belief and understanding of this as helped by God the Holy Spirit seen in the words of John addressed to his accusers whom he turns round and accuses them of not knowing God. I believe that John is not only speaking of God the Son although that is who he is speaking of directly he also means God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. You cannot know God the Father without knowing God the Son therefore they did not know God.. (27) The voice in the wilderness John the Baptist son of the priest Zacharias gives a great example of how my heart should be before God. Before any man the Son of God everything else of the created order came afterwards that is why John speaks of him as being preferred before me because he was before me. Before I was brought into existence God the Son In another translation speaking of Christ the Son of God John is quoted as saying ranked higher than I. I am not worthy to untie his shoes He is God and I am a man made by his hands and so too am I I am a man a human being mortal flesh with a spirit and a soul my belief is that this is John’s point without God I am nothing and can do nothing without God’s help and this I get in and through His Son my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ because He has chosen me because He loves me and for no other reason and I love Him and I pray that the Spirit of the living God would help me to love and serve my Lord with all of my heart in showing and giving this love to others. (28)John’s accusers left him to continue the work of the Lord but their exit from the scene is one with regret because they refused to acknowledge the Lordship of his Son Jesus Christ and it is not God’s will that any should perish. Man has a choice and many will make the wrong one based on their own intellect and worldly wisdom there will be those who make the right choice. God bless them.

The Word who is the Son of God and the Lamb of God. Jn.1:29-34 (29) There is only one person that can deal with my sin and others who are my brothers and sisters in Christ as well as the sin of the whole world. Sin cannot be tolerated by God in any shape or form you and I have sinned against God but I focus and concentrate on what God would say to me on this very important issue and challenge of how I react and what I do in regard to this. I make no mistake on how God viewed me in regard to sin before He in His mercy and forbearance towards me chose me in and through His Son Jesus Christ to be born again not because I deserved any of it only because He loved me and loves me So how did God view sin in me? However; God the Holy Spirit is now dealing with the flesh that still lingers in me and I will not arrive until I am in heaven I digress To get back to the time I did not know God in a proper sense before I was born again. Sin comes from the Greek word hamartia meaning I have missed the mark. I have failed. I have committed an offense against God I deliberately took the wrong course and I knew I was doing wrong. When Adam sinned and rebelled against God genetically I inherited his sin in the same manner as others have. I was cursed with Adam and my future would have been on course for the pit of hell, fire and sulpher, endless agony and torment. There are those who will decide against God and this will be their end but that is their choice all of us are free voluntary moral agents to choose what path we will take the choice lies before us I say this because not everyone will accept the Lamb of God as the door into heaven infact some will say there is no God. I do not decide who goes into heaven and who does not God makes that decision. Enough to say that sin is enmity towards God and His anger will always be directed against it. This is how God saw my sin before He graciously showed mercy and compassion towards me in and through His Son Jesus Christ His only begotten whom He gave up for me that is how grieved He feels towards my sin. The only other alternative is too horrific to even think

of to die and sacrifice myself would not achieve anything because my blood would still be unclean and I would still be heading towards the pit. John the Baptist speaks to those beside him and in his words lies the solution to the sin of mankind everywhere including me past present and future. The voice of the wilderness sees Jesus coming towards him there is no doubt in his voice as he describes Jesus as the Lamb of God who had come to take away the sin of the world. Lamb signifies a young sheep.In the Old Testament lambs were sacrificed in order that the people of Israel would cleansed of their sins by the blood of the lambs but it was a repetitive act that would be repeated at the time and place as required by God’s law The problem is it never changed the hearts of God’s people and how He wanted them to live. A few did most of them did not. It was by large ineffectual. How would I have been at that time I have no idea. But God chose me for this time. Sin is always here it was no different in the times of the Levitical Priesthood cf Lev.4:3.Simply because he was human the anointed priest could commit sin at any time even before he officiated over the blood sacrifice for God’s people to cleans them from sin. He could then pass his sin onto others but God had provided a means to stop him from doing this he is to offer a young bull without blemish as a sacrifice for his own sin If a ritual could stop evil from coming into my heart and mind that would be great and there would have been no need for God’s Son to have sacrificed Himself to the death upon a cross but as I know that was not the case Most of the religious leaders including the people of God used these ordinations laid down by God to absolve themselves from wrongdoing and carry on from were they had left off not what God had intended. God knew their hearts as He knows mine. What I learn from this is just how serious God views personal sin and the reason why He sent His Son Jesus Christ to die for me and the whole world He was made the scapegoat for the whole world. Cf.Lev.16:8 From this I can see how deep God’s love is for me but I as a mortal will never plunge to the ends of the depths of this love nor the lengths of it nor soar to the ends of the heights of it all I ask is that He draws me close every day that I walk with him on my life’s journey and be ever grateful to Him for his love and the gift of his Son Jesus Christ made available to me and my responsibility is to Him who is the Lamb

of God my Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ the gloriously resurrected One. I cannot say enough about the One who died for me rose again and set me free from my sin. The apostle Peter explains it superbly in his words. Cf.1.Pet.2:24”…..who himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness-by whose stripes you were healed…” I was healed. (30) Again John the Baptist repeats to the crowd what he has already said to them in the previous verses before our immediate passage with more detail”…….after me comes a man who is preferred before me, for he was before me….” Preferred means as I have said ranked higher than me. John the voice to distinguish him from the apostle John is now speaking of the Son of God as a man.It could be that what the Baptist is thinking of here is my Lord’s sinless character as a man I am quite sure that is exactly how the wilderness voice sees Him and wants me to see him exactly as that. The man with no sin Interestingly how the Baptist uses the expression before me twice in the same verse. What is it that God would have me understand in the interpretation of the said phrase? John the apostle would have good reason to include this in his narrative of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. I believe in some sense it alludes to the glory and the greatness of my risen Lord before becoming a man as the Son of God in all His glorious Shekinah glory in majestic splendour which has always been his who for my sake in this part of history left it for a season. (31)The messenger John speaking of the Son of God acknowledges that he did not know him as a man nor knew him intimately as the Son of God which is impossible anyway because he is man and the Son of God is God. John knew God in a limited way and was closest to him than any other person mentioned in the New Testament other wise he would not have been able to accomplish the mission that God had sent him on. God only reveals so much of Himself to me because He is God and is sovereign over all and there will always be that deep mystery that He covers Himself with. The unknowable that belongs to Him and the second and third person of the trinity. How would He be God otherwise? He is knowable in as much He allows Himself to be known of to me in and through His Son Jesus Christ my Lord and God as He reveals Himself to me through the still small voice of God the Holy Spirit (31) The voice in the wilderness John the messenger speaks of what has been revealed to him that the Lord would be revealed to Israel he had

come baptizing with water symbolizing the fact that the Messiah would come baptizing with the power of the Holy Spirit which I and others have been baptized with. Water was just a mere outward confessional ritual of repentance of ones sins it had no power to make change in a persons life only God the Holy Spirit can do that. But it is a very important symbol and a public confession of Christ’s Lordship over our lives. I went through the waters of baptism when I was eighteen (32) John speaks and declares to the crowds what he saw he saw God the Holy Spirit descend from heaven like a dove and enter and remain on Jesus Christ my Lord (33)At this juncture God speaks to John the Baptist and informs him that it is only His Son that can baptize with the Holy Spirit and I have too keep asking Him to fill me with His Spirit to enable me to live a victorious Christ like life the only way to overcome the world I live in. (34) Again he declares to the crowds that he has seen and testifies that he has seen the Son of God who listened and acted in the right response as expected from God I do not know not at this point in time but what is important is it was declared to the crowds.

The first two disciples of Jesus Christ Andrew and John Jn.1:35-42. (35) John the Baptist had his own followers until they met the Messiah Jesus of Nazareth the Christ. Obviously there were more but it is Andrew and John who are mentioned here.Andrew and John are disciples of John They had listened to what John had to say about the coming Messiah because that is who Jesus is and had entered into agreement with him. I believe they went through all John had commanded of them including the baptism John performed over them in the river Jordan So their hearts are ready for the coming King. Both had now started out on the journey as well as could be expected but more important is to finish the race (36)The ability of John to know his place before God the Father as being a man a great man but you never see him claiming that for himself. His humility is not spoken of but I can see it in his every word and action he

does not clamor for recognition he is the one who will point the way to the Messiah the Son of God and the apostle John writes of this in this text. The Baptist while standing with his disciples was looking at Jesus while He was walking and spoke” Behold the Lamb of God” In all I do and say it must match my commitment to my Lord and Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ sometimes it does not because I take my eyes of the Lord Andrew and John left a very lucrative life style as fishermen perhaps not so lucrative but they were able to make a living. Now as I see in the next verse they left everything to follow Jesus. But the point I believe the apostle John is making in this verse is I have to take my eyes off of myself as John the Baptist had done and put myself totally at the disposal of my risen Lord and God Jesus Christ and give Him all the glory for what He does through me because in myself I can do nothing. To be a true disciple of Jesus Christ is very costly in fact I would say it is a different life style instead of looking to my values as I once did influenced by the world I live in I now look to my Lord so I will know the path He would have me trod on. Not easy but this is what Andrew and John did even although they knew the religious leaders of their day was set against Him as they would be against them and it is the same for me to day. True Christianity is actually harder to live than conforming to the world I live in and the genuine mark of every authentic disciple of my Saviour Jesus Christ. I have heard it said that Christianity does attract thousands but not all for the right reasons and I can see this right across the globe and as I read through the Gospel of John it was prevalent then too. However what has struck me in the previous passages I have studied including the last two verses is the humility of John the Baptist known as the voice in the wilderness what a great lesson for me. The forerunner of the King and his messenger to the world as a man depicts a humble heart and attitude towards His Messiah my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ the very same that is expected of me.. (37) Andrew and John heard what John said about Jesus the second time as he was walking and they were standing. There was an immediate effect because they began to follow Jesus I have no idea whether they knew who Jesus was even although they had heard everything that John the Baptist had said about Jesus being the Lamb of God who had come to take away the sin of the world but they both had some kind of grasp of it Seeing Jesus in person the two of them followed him I believe Jesus possessed a magnetic personality he

drew people too him. A vitality of life that just shone out of his humanity towards others. I in hindsight can see what they did not see God in human flesh radiating his own Shekinah glory in front of all men but what radiated from him drew these men to himself. The same thrill and experience of becoming sheep of the Lamb is available to others come and learn of him when he says I am the good shepherd come and learn of me. As I have done. (38) Now Jesus who can discern what thoughts a man has in his heart knows that there are two men following behind him and he probably knows what they are thinking of... I should know that Jesus knows what I am going to do before I do it because He is God and He loves me and has only the best intentions towards me how he must feel when I do something and do not consult him and fall into error. Perhaps Andrew and John should have spoken to Jesus instead of just following Him without introducing themselves it would have been the right thing to do. Jesus had not spoken to them and John the Baptist certainly had not spoken to him on their behalf Jesus knew just how hard and difficult it was going to be for his disciples but they did not know how difficult and hard it was going to be for them. No one can truly serve God without the help of the Holy Spirit without His help it is totally impossible these two men were not aware of that at that time but Jesus was. The question he asks of them is a question He continues to ask me.” What do you seek?” Is it what I can do for you or have you come to serve me? At this juncture Andrew and John completely miss the point because they do not answer Him and instead they ask a question both of them address Jesus by replying to him and calling him Rabbi and asking if he had a place to stay. I believe they were stunned when Jesus turned round and questioned them probably thought we will wait for some quiet spot and then speak to Him. He took them by surprise He just does that. My Lord is always one step ahead of me and when I think I have it sussed He says no Raymond I want you to do this. It was the same with these men Jesus was speaking his authority over them you will through time recognize my Lordship over you. You call me Rabbi but I am more than that and the time will come when you will know-How wonderfully patient and compassionate Jesus is too these two men and he loves them that is clear to see. Full of mercy, compassion, and love for the whole world. (39) The Religious Leaders of the day would not have even spoken to them the Pharisees and the Sadducees made up of scribes priests and

lawyers. They were too holy in their own eyes not to be contaminated by the crowds touching them the poor and the ignorant they must have committed sin for that too befall them. I believe there are misguided Christians who believe the same as the Pharisees and the Sadducees because they have been born again they believe mistakenly that they are a cut above the common people who do not know Christ and if in church office some of them believe that they are better than their brethren and Lord it over them why did John the apostle who is writing an account of the gospel of my Lord in his first letter to the first century Christians warning them to be on guard because in the latter days wolves will come into the flock disguised as sheep then and it is my responsibility and my brothers and sisters to recognize this when it rears its ugly head as it will. You can do all that you need to do go through the motions as everyone expects you too and look like a very godly man preach and teach what is true and acceptable and God the Holy Spirit will help you to do that because it is applicable to everyone but He knew I was not applying it to me. I have heard it said that once you become a Christian and you come from a working class background you can end up being middle classed and categorized as that when you stay that way thinking that you know best. Something that can happen and does when you graduate from a Bible College as I have done. Not everyone falls into that pit but I did but praise God He rescued me from myself and I have being doing street evangelism under the direction of God the Holy Spirit and what a difference He makes. Sadly and unfortunately many churches try to do the work of God without the leading of God the Holy Spirit and regretfully they look to human self sufficiency and that breeds contempt in them without them realizing it. You are given a position in the body of Christ because of your status in the secular world not because you are any more spiritual than your brothers and sisters I know this because I have experienced it. It does not mean that you cannot be successful in the world and spiritually too. It’s the means taken to achieve your success. I was a worker in a factory from the age of eighteen and I was employed there for twelve years but the church in which I was baptized in as Christ commanded made sure I knew my place. No academic qualifications of any kind and yet God took me from educational obscurity sent me to Bible College gave me a three year diploma and educated me to the equivalent of a years university degree through my religious studies as it was called for Cambridge passing a number of their papers..

After graduating from college I began to work in the insurance industry first with the CiS for two years and then I was successful in applying for the position of District Office Inspector for Glasgow South for the Scottish Legal Assurance Society in which I was successful and left after two years because the pay was not that great for the job Why am I relating all of this because there are two sides of the coin as soon as I got the position I was promoted to the Deaconate in a church that I had just joined they did not know what I was like outside of the church and did not ask. Jesus continues to ask me the same question. “Is it what I can do for you or have you come to serve me?” My answer is to pray that God the Holy Spirit will always help and enable me to serve my risen Lord with joy and love that comes from all of my heart. (39) Jesus responds in an unexpected manner if it had been someone else they would have ignored these two men because they had failed to answer his first question Not only the religious leaders of the day. I would have done too. I still get upset when someone fails to answer me when I speak to them but not so much now God continues to deal with it. He forgives me and He helps me to forgive them. The crucial point for me in this point of the narrative of the life of Jesus penned by the apostle John is how the world re-acts to this situation in contrast to how Jesus responds. He is not of this world but he is in the world as God and man. I do not know what was in the minds of Andrew and John when instead of answering the question they re-acted by asking Jesus a question .I believe like I have said about how I would respond the religious leaders would have done likewise. But this is no excuse to be bad mannered towards our brothers and sisters when I am asked a question by them and the world but if they do not want to answer me it is their prerogative hardly Christ like it is their choice God sets a new standard in how He wants man to be not the world’s standards his standards and I can see this in the Son of God Jesus Christ in his attitude, response, and reaction to the response he received from Andrew and John... He invites them to come and see. Anybody else would have told them to mind their own business and in the world’s eyes they would have been correct not how God sees it. Jesus is the Son of God but here I see him as a man without his own power as God he is reliant on God the Holy Spirit to enable Him as a man to meet the new standards his Father is looking for from him and making the equation that it is indeed true that with God the Holy Spirit in my life it is

possible to please God and meet his criteria. God loves the world so much that he sent his Son down to meet with men and in this interlude I can see the love of the Father in his Son Jesus being poured out upon these two men who knew him as a Rabbi a teacher still to learn of him as being the Son of God giving up everything to follow in his footsteps No comforter to help and enable them to understand because Jesus the Son of God was with them and he had to come to the world himself in order that they and I could be saved from sin the Holy Spirit would come afterwards once Jesus had appeared after his death and had ascended into heaven. At the moment that was quite a distance off I should appreciate more that unlike the first few disciples of my Lord I have been given the abundance of the Holy Spirit to enable me to live a life that is pleasing to Him Not only do I see the mercy and compassion that Jesus pours out upon these two men I see his love too in a practical way not only does he ask them to come and see He allows them to stay with Him. I have to follow the same example in loving people with the love of Christ who is in me and only with his Spirit am I able to do that I can not do it on my own very effectively I need his help. Andrew and John once they entered into the accommodation that Jesus had managed to get both of them stayed with him that day. The fascinating importance of this day cannot be lost because Andrew and John were on a one too one basis with Jesus and John more than anyone else including Andrew was left with a deep impression of his Lord that imprinted itself deep down into his heart that changed him completely forever and the Gospel of Christ that he writes of here is proof and evidence of that. He was compelled with a zeal and a passion and the love he held for his Lord because Jesus loved him first to live a life of dedicated obedience his whole life given over to his Lord and God Jesus Christ no easy task for the time he lived in under Roman occupation. A terrific challenge towards me in the century I find myself living in and all who love the Lord. (40) The seed Jesus had sown was now beginning to bear fruit like some one throwing a stone into a river when it hits the water it causes many ripples to occur upon the surface. Likewise with Andrew the seed had been planted deep down into his heart. He is the brother of Simon Peter. When I speak to my family about the love that Jesus Christ wants to give them which I have I must leave it in my Lord’s hands for it to bear fruit and because my witness and testimony as a father has not been good I make it harder for my

Lord to speak to them. Again I have to make hard decisions that will be good for them in the long run they will not see that at the moment but eventually they will. I believe they call it tough love. But in the case of Andrew I can see how infectious he is in his personality bubbly full of euphoria his meeting with Jesus dramatically and drastically changed him for the good of the gospel and I believe he would be excited in regard to this as I am excited about it but it brings tears of joy to my face when I have a close encounter with my Lord and when He speaks to me. (41) After his meeting with Jesus full of enthusiasm and euphoria he immediately goes and looks for his brother Simon Peter and without any hint of embarrassment or fear because these were perilous times while under Roman occupation only Caesar was called god and if anyone called someone else god they would have been immediately killed put to the sword a bloody violent death and their families imprisoned.With that background in mind it is quite astounding what I see them say and do such is the effect Jesus makes upon them. A very radical step forward with no turning back the same effect Jesus made on me but I am not in perilous times as they were. The time was fraught with danger for them all. All of the time including their Lord and my Lord but as long as Jesus was with them as a man they were not in danger but they were not to know that I look at the boldness and audacity of Andrew as he searches out his brother Simon Peter. Speaks to him and includes John because he uses the plural we. There is no doubt in his mind as far as Andrew is concerned they have found the Messiah the Christ and these are the words he uses to speak to Simon Peter his brother. I see drama at its peak here because of the troublesome times they lived in as there was always violence of some description but it did not deter them from what they were doing astonishing because the Holy Spirit had still to come upon them (42) Actions and words because there is no such thing as a passive belief. Such is the faith of Andrew that he brought his brother Simon Peter to Jesus and he looked at Simon and said he was the son of John but now he will be called Cephas meaning a stone a hard object that will not break He would eventually prove to be that when filled with the Holy Spirit because He would change Him as He changes me and my brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus so that we can bring in the lost. I have to allow God the Holy Spirit to change me and be obedient to Him as He guides me in this life down here in the same manner He changed

those early disciples and followers of Jesus Christ our Lord from them the church of the Lord Jesus Christ would grow and I and my brethren are charged to keep it growing.

Jesus calls Philip and Nathanael to follow Jn.1:43-51 (43) It is quite explicit Jesus found Philip spoke to him and said follow me. Nobody can follow Jesus unless he asks them too. Many are called few are chosen. The many are those who hear the call the chosen are those who respond to Jesus and keep responding to him. Response is my part the command to follow comes from my Lord and to continue to respond and obey His voice. Unlike Andrew and John they followed Jesus without being asked. When they walked behind him. The apostle John speaks of the desire of Jesus of wanting to go to Galilee and then He found Philip the inexplicable is at that moment Philip did not know Jesus until he was asked to follow him. There is no tie up with the names of towns and cities but there is as I will see in the next verse. I believe that John only mentioned Galilee because that was the next city that he and Jesus and the rest of the disciples intended to visit. There is no spiritual significance another stop on the route for Jesus. (44)But this is highly significant Philip Andrew, and Peter was from the same city of Bethsaida. The passage does not provide clear proof that these three individuals ever met but how do I answer the question that Philip immediately got up and followed Jesus without knowing something about him. I am not saying it is not impossible for this to happen but John does include the fact that the three early disciples Philip, Andrew, and Peter came from Bethsaida.My own conclusion is that they did know each other and Philip probably heard Andrew and Peter talking about Jesus and when he was asked to follow he did so. But there is no hard and fast method of how Jesus reveals Himself to those He loves sometimes it can be very unconventional I lost my earthly father when I was only four as an only child left with my mother to bring me up and God my heavenly Father stepped in. The supernatural coming to a small boy not that I recognized that as that just thought in my child like way that it was perfectly natural and He has been with me ever since. Praise his wonderful name (45) Now as I read on I find something very interesting in the character of Philip and perhaps he did not know Andrew and Peter as I first

suggested looking at the words he uses to speak to Nathanael. Philip is quite sure in his own mind that Jesus of Nazareth is indeed the Messiah he has an unshakeable faith in Jesus being the Son of God I am not saying he understood everything but he was sure in his mind that Jesus is the Messiah. God in Jesus as the Son commanded Philip to follow him and he did so that is what my Lord asks of me just to be obedient to His voice He will do the rest. It is not what I want to do it is what He wants me to do. Obviously looking at what Philip says to Nathanael he is aware of what is being taught in the Synagogues about the One who is to come. What is said by Moses in the law and the Prophets. For to hear this Philip must have attended the Synagogue on a regular basis to hear what was being taught. So when Jesus came along he already had some idea. Of who Jesus was and is My Lord is gathering a number of men here from very different backgrounds to teach them about himself and who he is reminding me of how very important it is to have fellowship with my brothers and sisters in the Lord. I can only achieve this by attending my local fellowship in the city on Sunday morning and evening services. Jesus still attended the Synagogue along with his disciples and Philip was doing this before meeting Jesus. I note that Philip does not hesitate to tell Nathanael the man in question is Jesus of Nazareth the Son of Joseph. Philip must have been aware that what he is saying was not the popular opinion of were the Messiah would come from and he knew Nathanael would know that but nevertheless he said it to him probably knew the reply he would get. (46) Is there anything good in Nazareth replies Nathanael not being derisory towards the city but because it was so far away and obscure. Philip is not put off and encourages the man to come and see Jesus make up his own mind. I am to press on in to what God wants me to do and not to be shackled by others as I see Philip doing here..He was not deterred I am going to press in towards God in Christ so that I may know him and become like him as I can see Philip doing my relationship with God my Father and my Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ guided and strengthened by God the Holy Spirit must come first at all times. This is what Jesus is teaching his disciples here. (47) Jesus the man sees Nathanael walking towards him but now I see him as God his foreknowledge of all things before being called into

existence. When Jesus was born as a man he was still God There is never a time when he is not God and this is clearly demonstrated here. The problem begins when for whatever reason I take my eyes off of him. I am the one out of step never the Lord. He knows everything there is to know about Nathanael in his foreknowledge in similar fashion he knows me. Perhaps if I studied this more thoroughly letting God the Holy Spirit wash over me I would not make as many rash decisions as I have done. Taking this a step further when you think of the foreknowledge of God the Son he who knows everything it is quite awesome. He knows what I am going to do before I do it good or evil including my thought life whether a bad thought comes into me or a good thought before it even occurs. How stupid am I to think He does not know what I say and do or think. Sin in human flesh is irrational flaunting itself against a Holy and righteous God who is Jesus Christ the Son. Jesus already knew the answer Nathanael had given to Philip and now was going to reveal to Nathanael He is who Philip said He is by the use of his fore knowledge of Nathanael.The doctrine of the Person and work of my Lord Jesus Christ is of ultimate importance as the Bible clearly defines it aided and abetted by God the Holy Spirit I will learn much more about the foreknowledge of God and the more I know of Him the more effective will my worship will be towards Him. This is just a small insight into a subject vast in its contents. I am always learning something new from the Word of God. I digress Nathanael is not to know who Jesus is he can only go by what he had been taught the divine revelation of who Jesus is was now upon him. If I do not tell people who Jesus is while He walks with me who else is going to tell them when He leads me by His Spirit to speak to them. God in the Person of His Son was now revealing to Nathanael through His foreknowledge of him that He is indeed the Christ. Only things that Nathanael knew of Himself beautiful intimacy the deep things He knows about me as He knows about this man. Immediately Nathanael without being aware of it has something Jesus sees in him that is to his advantage and the fact He knows of it will make even a skeptic like Nathanael know Jesus is the Christ when He imparts this knowledge to him. Unfortunately I can be like that at times but the solution is to press on into God it is in my hands to do that. When I was at Bible College I had studied the foreknowledge of God but from an academic back ground perhaps if God gives me time it will be more devotional

Jesus said of Nathanael,”Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit” Deceit causes all kinds of problems I have been guilty of that one in the past it means to deliberately deceive someone for my own gain stealing something from someone that is not rightfully mine does not need to be tangible it could mean stealing someone’s time and that can never be put back. For my Lord to say to this man that he was an Israelite with no deceit no higher accolade could have been given to Nathanael especially when it came from the Son of God. To be told you have no deceit from someone in authority particularly in religious affairs was a great honour for a Jew when only a few knew. Cf.Ps32:2”Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, And in his spirit there is no deceit.” Now when you are told very personal details in regard to your life from a complete stranger it would take the wind out of your sails this has happened to me from one of my brothers in Christ an a evangelist from Canada who came to my church Glasgow Elim last year he had been invited by the senior pastor Simon Foster his name Mark Griffins and God revealed the fact to him that I had been sowing seed in hard soil since I had been a Christian and it had been very hard ground he told me that it would bear fruit and the fruit from the seed would be great in my latter years than in my former I have never told anyone about this and it was great encouragement to me from God revealed to his faithful servant Mark Griffins. Not the first time either in my walk with God. Praise his wonderful name. (48) No wonder Nathanael replied how do you know me I have never even met you this is the first time I have saw you. And yet you have these details of me that only a few know? But even now the man continues to be skeptical towards Jesus he has after all revealed to the man as a stranger to him something he should not have not known. I believe Nathanael was perplexed about this. Something was going to have to give to shift his earthly stance the next verse is the key I have wrestled with this in my mind trying to understand what God would have me understand in the next verse and after consulting a few devotional commentaries the Holy Spirit at last gave me the interpretation that I needed a word of knowledge revealed from deity Jesus who is God that is the only way that the next verse makes any sense. A word of knowledge is when God tells you something about a person and he wants you to go over and speak to them and a conversation is struck up between you and that person and at the right

time you mention a few details that God has revealed to you about that man and woman and they know it could only come from God. Sometimes it’s about God just putting a thought into your heart about someone you are speaking too and you do something for them and that is exactly what they were looking for without them speaking of what they were looking for. A word of knowledge about the need of a man or woman you are talking too. (49) Taking these two verses together is the only way I believe to understand Nathaniel’s reaction when Jesus said to him that he had seen him standing under the fig tree before Philip spoke to him I believe my Lord was not meaning his physical sight but one who is God who can see everything. A rather frightening concept for me but not frightening in the idea of terror frightening in the sense that I have to pursue holy righteous living separated to God not my holy righteousness the righteousness of Christ within me because one day I will appear before the throne before Him. This is what Jesus is calling Nathaniel too and he is making sure that this man knows that he is God the Son of God I believe when Jesus spoke to Nathaniel about seeing him under the fig tree Jesus was no where to be seen and Nathaniel thought I did not see you. You cannot have seen me because I did not see you. Suddenly the Holy Spirit revealed to Nathaniel the true identity of Jesus as the Son of God and the King of Israel Nobody can save anyone only God can through His Spirit I can go and listen to great godly people preaching and teaching but without the Spirit of the living God moving in my heart nothing will be accomplished the crucial test is being obedient to the still small voice it had to be a word of knowledge from my Lord to Nathaniel in order to reveal to this man that he is indeed a Rabbi the Son of God and King of Israel not only Israel of all the nations of this world. (50)You think this is great Nathaniel Jesus replies to him. He would see Jesus healing the sick raising the dead casting out demons and the greatest miracle of all the Son of God being resurrected from a cruel blooded barbaric death upon a cross in which he suffered a lingering death raised by His Father God .Nathaniel would see all of this. (51) My Lord gives a view into the future to Nathaniel great and wonderful miracles that will make all that he sees on earth pale into insignificance he who was despised and rejected by men will be coming back from heaven he who was looked upon as a heretic and blasphemer

by the religious leaders of his day because he came from Nazareth will prove something good and perfect had come out of that city. Heaven will open and my Lord and King will come down to reign upon the earth but this will be a new heaven and earth the old heaven and earth will have melted and dissolved in the elements what a frightening picture for those who do not know God that is why I am accountable for the way I live The angels are God’s messengers they will carry messages from heaven to earth and vice versa for Him and all we who love Him will be there. A vision of great glory, majesty, and splendor a fiery fire that shines forever.

Jn.2:1-11. The first manifestation of Jesus glory as deity

(1) To understand why Jesus chose Cana to perform His first miracle depicting an outward sign of his majestic glory as one who is God I believe I need to go back to the Old Testament to find out the history of the town and the region. Turning to Joshua the information needed is found there but turning to the particular passage and verse (Jos.17:28) it is spelt Kanah under the rule of the tribe of Asher However; it is in the book of Judges of the Old Testament Israel refused to conquer the whole of Canaan and lived to regret what they had done because they had disobeyed a Holy God reminding me that my Father in heaven is a Holy Righteous God He is not Lord God for nothing He is my Lord and my God. Nothing was made that was not made through His Son Jesus Christ and that includes the rebellious and they too will be made to bow the knee. I digress there is more to this narrative than changing water to wine important as that is the towns and cities in the Galilean region which included Cana are those who did not obey the royal decree that came from the Lord God to destroy the Canaanite inhabitants that being the case Jews and Canaanites grew up together for hundreds of years More than likely those responsible and their earlier offspring had died and the Lord God was doing a new thing in their midst in the person of his Son Jesus Christ He had said He would keep a remnant of His people for Himself and where better than those former towns and

cities that had rebelled against Him because His ways are higher than my ways and his thoughts are higher than mine and the world for that matter after all He made it. So how incredible He begins to show mercy and compassion to those who receive His Son as their Lord and as I read the following chapters it includes Samaritans. Notably the Samaritan woman at the well which is further on. The region of Galilee took in the towns of Chorazin. Bethsaida Capernaum Nain, Cana, and Nazareth all located in Northern Israel who from time to time was visited by our Lord. Each of these towns had a very high percentage of Gentiles living there interestingly Jesus chose his apostles from these towns despite the commonly held belief that no prophet could come from there. It brings to memory what the prophet Isaiah prophesied over this region of northern Israel that a great light would shine upon the Gentiles in the region of Galilee of the Gentiles (Isa.9:1,2)In Galilee of the Gentiles. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, Upon them a light has shined) The irony of this is that the Jews hated all non Jews and yet Jesus chose men from these towns to be his apostles because He knew he would send them later on to preach the gospel the good news that he had come and had died upon the cross for them that they as well as the Jews in belief on his name as Lord now sitting in glory would be released from their sins. A concept far too difficult for the ordinary Jewish man and woman to swallow they were after all the chosen race what they had forgot is that God made the entire human race and He loved them all. If they had only read this passage in Isaiah but I must remember that the men my Lord chose from this region to be his apostles were Jews and He was a Jew himself. The bottom line is that God loves the whole of mankind whatever race religion and colour because His way is the true way to eternal life. Jesus Christ my Lord is the great light He continues to shine in the darkness and the darkness will not overcome His light. I believe that the apostle would want me to understand these two verses together because it would seem that Mary the mother of Jesus was a prominent guest at this wedding to whom she had been invited along with her Son Jesus and his disciples.cf 2:2-3.Note that John never mentions my Lord's mother's first name Mary he always describes her as the mother of Jesus

It could be as far as I am concerned and it is only a suggestion Mary the mother of Jesus is his earthly parent and that is all. Not that there is no great privilege, honour and responsibility .Of course there is but she is human as I am and not part of the deity. As a man Jesus was born from his mother's womb Mary but as God never the crucial importance of this I believe must be seen in the fact Mary was and always will be remembered for being the earthly mother of Jesus she was chosen by God to be the means of bringing his Son Jesus Christ into the world as a man he is not the son of Mary he is properly the Son of God The emphases and prominence of the passage is thrust upon one who is God and the mother of Jesus recedes into the background the mission that God his Father had begun initiated by God put into action by God made active in and through God the Son Jesus Christ the Son of God the Father. In that context everything else pales into insignificance. Turning to the verse the wedding party had run out of wine and Jesus was informed of this through his mother. I have no idea why she would do this because I believe Jesus all ready knew of the situation and whether he would have performed the first of his miraculous signs with out being prompted by his mother I will never know. What it does show is human impatience I am at fault with the same weakness and so too are my brothers and sisters to some degree I want God to give me what he haves for me yesterday that is not how God works and the person Mary is addressing is one who is God but she speaks to him as one who is her earthly son as his mother she was too close to him Difficult situation for Mary because she brought him out of her own womb and in her eyes he was her son mothers have a hard time of letting go of their sons and daughters and there comes a time when they have too in particular to godly parents because like my wife and I they belong to God The Lord God made everything in and through and for his Son Jesus Christ. I cannot get away from this truth I was not made for myself I was made for Christ but I have to agree to stay in Christ and love Him with a desire to love because He loves me. At the end of verse three the mother of Jesus comes to him and asks for assistance of an earthly nature because she knows him to be not only man but that of God what she did not know was that this would be the first of many signs pointing to the miraculous character of one who is God an outward visible manifestation of glory of one who is deity

(4)I believe that the mother of Jesus was trying to influence him into helping out with the wine situation because they had run out and she was very much a prominent guest and was in need of help to supply more and turned to Jesus because she knew who He is the Son of God and had lost sight of his real mission He had come to save mankind and this was just a side show against the real purpose of his visit to earth and that was to serve the will of His Father God. The turning of water into wine was not of a lasting quality it only served the taste buds of the flesh the wine had no spiritual deposit. It was only to celebrate an earthly wedding even although it is a high light of Jewish culture and had there been no wine it would have been embarrassing for the mother of Jesus the motivation of her thinking perhaps that is why his reply was terse because after He had turned the water into wine they would only think of the miracle and not the one who had made it happen apart from his disciples at the end of the passage I am told they believed in Him My Lord now reminds his mother not to think anymore of him being her son He is the Son of God and his public ministry and life was coming on full stream in obedience to God his Father. Of course He continues to love his mother as He does with everyone. The time had come to leave home and pursue the purpose and mission handed to Him from God His Father. I can see this in the words of Jesus Christ my Lord and God "My hour has not yet come." He is aware and conscious of the fact that He is doing the will of the Father and after each action there is a time put on it. A time that is subject and appropriate to the action taken. (7:6 My time has not yet come.) cf. ( 8:20;12:23.) (5) Mary the mother of Jesus realizes that this was no longer her son He is the Son of God and as her God submits to his authority and directs the servants to do what He asks of them. When I gave my life to the risen glorified Lord I could no longer do what pleased me but I was a child and the flesh was still in me even after I was born again the flesh was still in me and to conclude when I prayed the flesh was still there It is extraordinary how the Holy Spirit is leading me and only because I determined to press into God and know more of Him despite a serious push from the enemy to stop me from doing so. Yielding myself into submission to Him who is my Lord and my God and he saw what was in my heart towards Him and saw the serious intent to serve Him no matter what. He was gracious and merciful to me and gave a word of knowledge a revelation that released me from a genealogical curse from my ancestors

and to see how I would deal with it and when I dealt with it in the way He commanded me to do so the Lord in His mercy said it was only for the senior pastor of my church and not for the body of Christ I was obedient to His word submission is the key. I am allowed to reveal this. The Lord said to me Raymond this is not your victory this is my victory when after you were born I taunted the enemy with you. Look at my son see what he is doing. I am no longer an infant a child I am a son. I was watching Benny Hinn on the God channel this morning roughly about 9.30 and this is what his subject was sonship I do not normally watch television at that time another word from God affirming and confirming the fact that I was now one of His sons because I am willing to crucify Raymond McGough in submission and obedience to his sovereign will not only my life Irene my wife's too. A decision she took a long time ago I ask myself why are men so slow? Only my Lord can answer that question The journey to being a son and a daughter of God begins when you decide to crucify yourselves the old nature the old man who lingers in you the old rebellious Adam. Until such an action has been taken you will remain as children such as I was and I have come to this place of maturity only because I pressed into knowing who God is the Lord Jesus Christ my God and my Lord. To know more of Him of the Father God and the Holy Spirit. Amen (6-8) A major key to this miracle is the belief of the servers in believing that Jesus was going to do something miraculous but what they did not know. So they filled the six water pots with water each could hold thirty gallons a piece and the time involved in doing this would test their belief and confidence in that Jesus would be able to do something. To the people who were doing this it would have seemed absurd and ridiculous. The full volume of water was 150 gallons and it was all changed to wine. When Jesus spoke to the servers they had to have the belief in the word he spoke to accomplish what He said for their part they had to have trust in Him for the finished result. In other words act upon the word received When God the Holy Spirit tells me to do something I have to be obedient and go and do it no matter how ridiculous it may seem to my way of thinking it still needs to be done. God is God and the enemy the devil is a defeated foe I must understand and grasp that fact. (9-10) Now the reality of the water being made into wine because the master of the feast called for the wine and tasted it and I believe was completely astonished because it was in far superior quality and taste

than the wine that was served before He compliments Jesus on the quality of the wine he had produced not knowing it had come from water A symbolic miraculous sign that what my Lord did with water He can and does with me he pours life into my soul life that is eternal as He does with all those who are in Christ Jesus and follow Him as His disciples no matter the cost... (11-12)My Lord performed this miraculous sign to show forth His majestic glory of one who is wholly other He who is God in the flesh He is preeminent as He has always been from everlasting to everlasting the Holy One standing for a season as a man for my sake. This great and wonderful miraculous sign had a practical side to it the strengthening of the trust of his disciples in Him who is God. Seeing is believing but my Lord said blessed are those who believe and have not seen just like me. After this Jesus went to Capernaum in which the home of James and John was located

John 2:13-22. Temple is cleansed by Jesus. (13) The Passover was a very important day in Jewish religious history and the Jews celebrated this event in remembrance of what God had done for them fourteen hundred years a go but it had become an empty ritual and the presence of God had long gone. An occurrence that took place in the early years of Isaiah when he was called by the Lord to be a mighty prophet The time had passed and the Jewish religious leaders were looking for an earthly world kingdom believing that the long expected Messiah would come and help them to kick out the Roman invaders from Jerusalem and all of Israel they had lost sight that it was to be a spiritual kingdom they could not perceive of such a thing and many are still under this preconceived idea and sadly are totally wrong Not only them there are those who shut out physical death and think that death is the end of everything and the life we live is all there is the enemy has done a number on these kind of people I believe that the Pharisees believed in the resurrection of the soul but believed misguidedly that you could get there by keeping the law perhaps the reason why Gentiles not all of them believe it is in doing good works but another totally false idea.

Passover means exactly that and this is what had happened in 1400B.C. when the Israelites were under captivity of Egypt enslaved by Pharaoh the final judgment had been made against him from God because once again he had hardened his heart. Now God was going to kill every first born male child of Egyptian families from the Pharaoh himself to the last family living at that time because the king had defied God for one more last time and he would perish with his army in the Red Sea. I was listening and watching the God slot a couple of evenings ago I can’t remember the title of the programme but what I do remember is what Benny Hinn had to say about our walk with God and how we are to serve those immediately above us The comments he made illustrate the terrifyingly awesomeness of the holiness of one who is God he is not someone whom you can trifle with his feelings he soon lets you know this when you are disciplined and depending how severe your offence against Him He could call you Home. I have no idea whom I am speaking too but if you have been called by God to be the understudy of one of His mighty men or women you cannot leave because you have been trained by God the Holy Spirit to be the individual chosen by God to take place of the great man or woman of God when they are called home. Does this apply to men and women who know God? I am afraid so. When you and I go against God and He, “Lets say me” I go against his express instructions that is a hardness of heart and wilful disobedience on my part and I criticise the man or woman whom God has clearly instructed me that I will take over from whom may be the pastor or leader of the flock and remember this is just a presupposition and I walk away God could decide to call me home my life on earth would be cut short. Not only did Pharaoh show a hardness of heart towards God so too did Miriam and Aaron but you say God is our heavenly Father loves us and that is indeed true He is however; principally God who cannot look upon injustice and those who rebel against Him including His own. Cf.Num.12:1-16. You cannot fight against God how totally impossible and irrational and yet to some ++ +degree we all do it. At last God is helping me to see sense. There was a hardness of heart in me and I thought it would never be broken I actually despaired of it but praise God in the last number of years He has broken through and is now softening my heart only because I

desired this and with serious intent I have been looking for God and what pleases Him. To get back to what I had been speaking of the Passover memorial feast celebrating the release of the Israelis from the captivity of the Egyptians through the supernatural activity of God They were instructed by God through Moses to take a lamb out of the herd which had no blemish sacrifice it and cover the door posts and the lintel with its blood so that when the angel of death flew over no Hebrew family would be harmed. The angel would pass over these Jewish homes in Egypt I believe this depicts how serious God views sin it is an abomination in his sight and He will ruthlessly and utterly destroy sin with an all consuming righteous fire including the person and persons who habitually do this. I have to understand that my God is a holy righteous God who is perfectly moral and upright in all of his ways and He is one who is God and demands a certain standard of life from me. I in myself cannot do this and God is very much aware of that. From what I have said in the above paragraph the importance of it is in the blood of the lamb and once the door posts and the lintel had been touched by this blood the Jewish families were covered death could not touch them. But all of this had fallen into a meaningless ritual the people and the Jewish religious leaders continued in their disobedience towards God and used this as a habitual system to confess their sin against God and go out after this and do what they done before. It was used as a means to go out and sin again. What does this tell me about what I am? Without God I am nothing I may as well not exist. He looks into my heart and spirit seven days a week and twenty four hours a day knows my every thought and knows what I am going to do before I do it.Good, bad, and indifferent He knows. Pretty frightening. I need to know God pursue Him as He himself pursues me there is no other alternative of pleasing Him. I see this in his Son Jesus as he goes up towards Jerusalem God making himself known to man in a human body such is his love for the creativity of his hands from which I have been made. Pursuing me wanting to make himself known to me. A great and wonderful love that is indeed beautiful absolutely intimate and majestic deep in total divine splendour.

Jesus who is God the Son covered in human skin with blood, muscles, sinew, and bones in every sense a man like any other the difference is He is without sin. The real nature of His Person hidden because He is one who is God. The synoptic gospels and the gospel of John testify to each other and to those who read them that the Jesus they speak of is none other than Jesus Christ the very Son of God to the Jews the long awaited Messiah and to the rest of the world the Saviour of mankind. At this period in history to the crowds and those who passed by him to them he looked nothing out of the ordinary just a man in the street The startling thing is that God is there right in the midst of them and they do not know Him. Everything that God has revealed of Himself in and through His Son Jesus Christ to man can be known in His Word the Bible with God the Holy Spirit in attendance. You need to have an encounter with God to change your life because just knowing the Bible and what is in the contents does not do it of course reading the word of God is very important for our spiritual growth and nourishment but in order for that to happen you need to meet the living God in person a supernatural occurrence that is done in the activity of God the Holy Spirit who breathes spiritual life into a man and woman’s spirit including children by speaking to them as well as breathing spiritual life into them you also need a desire in your heart for this. An occurrence that had happened to me many years gone by. The reason behind me speaking like this is at this time and before Jesus came to earth as a man the presence of God had left Israel because of her rebellion and disobedience towards God and only a few individuals retained the righteousness of God there were not many of them. A backdrop behind the cold indifference and eventually the hatred of the Jewish religious authorities towards Jesus because spiritually they were bereft and their whole idea was in keeping their own rules that they had added to the Old Testament. The traditions of your fathers Jesus said of them. An interesting thought has occurred to me I spoke of the presence of God leaving the temple of Jerusalem behind many, many hundreds of years before this period of time now I see it returning in the person of God’s Son Jesus known only as the man from Nazareth his true identity hidden from the crowds but still truly God and as God which I believe He is what He finds in the Temple truly upsets Him because of his

intrinsic nature of who he is being God but nobody in the Temple could see this the veil that covered their eyes had not been lifted (14) In the light of what Jesus speaks of in this verse the Holy Spirit puts a question into my heart which I still grapple with the Temple that is mentioned here is a building consecrated and dedicated to God for the use of his people to gather together and worship Him and to focus entirely in what He would want them to say and do. To be still in their hearts and know He is God. When there is clamour and noise it becomes next to impossible and nobody can hear what is being said from the front at the start of the service. God says I have to come with a joyous heart but I have to come with an awe and a reverence to one who is God a humbleness and a humility if you like to one who is God over all the majestic creator of the whole of the universe in whom I have my being and whom He loves undeservedly on my part without Him I would be nothing So what do I struggle with here the time I spend with my brothers and sisters in the body of Christ together in the one location in our corporate dedication and worship of God and towards God and you can feel the presence of God the Holy Spirit in the midst of us it is at the height of this experience that the enemy breaks in because of the structure of the service. Announcements and the offering needs to be taken the problems are when and has always been the case. As a believer I will struggle with this as I believe we all do. The time we spend with the Lord together is very precious indeed. What I see here in this verse flies in the face of that commerce and business is vaunting itself in a place it had no right to be because I believe greed had taken over and it’s only my suggestion that this was the case look closely at what the words actually say. Jesus found a number of those in the Temple selling oxen, sheep, and doves and the money changers doing business. The key to the verse is in the clause doing business. Doing business not for the Temple they were profiteering for themselves making huge amounts of money from those who could scarcely afford their prices. Making money from the name of God with no respect and love towards the God who had made them from the creativity of his hands. (15)Nobody rose to challenge Jesus as he drove the stall holders out before him until afterwards. I believe when I arrive at my place of worship there is at times not enough reverence in my heart towards God because that is exactly who He is and He demands my focus and

attention to be on Him at all times. It is not a deliberate thing I just get caught up in the life of the church and quite often our conversations have nothing to do with God anything but.Even although the money changers and the stall owners did not know the true identity of Jesus they were in awe of Him. (16)What am I meant to understand by this statement Jesus makes to those who are doing the selling only this that the merchandise they were selling was going into the pockets of the sellers for profit and not for the house of God to enable and help his people particularly those who were in great need. And not in a position to help themselves. Those who are in authority over us have to be very careful in what they do with the tithes that comes in from the people of God and what is done with it who are ultimately responsible before God with what they do with it and not fritter it away on some grandiose idea and project that achieves nothing for the spirituality of the body of the church in helping them to grow in the Godhead including those in authority Again Jesus underlines the point that He is God equal with His Father God as God even though at this point he is a man but still very much God his identity hidden in the flesh of a man from many who looked upon him while in the flesh. The idea that God could become a man was inconceivable to the mind of the Jew infact in their view it was blasphemous and for the orthodox Jew it still is their mental and human intellectuality had become stuck in the mode that God was monotheistic He was one God and could not speak to humans unless He used His angels to speak to them the possibility that he could become man was unthinkable never mind that there could be three different individual persons in the Godhead one God Father Son and Holy Spirit a fact that is borne out in the early chapters of the book of Genesis of the Old Testament something they had managed to overlook. Never crossed their minds that God being God nothing is impossible for Him to do. (17)An important principle for the strengthening of the belief of the disciples in Jesus of who He is the Holy Spirit brought to their minds a text that had been written of Him contained in the book of the Old Testament regarding his zeal for His Father’s house.cf Psalm69:9. “Because zeal for your house has eaten me up.” Zeal means jealousy but from a good sense jealousy is a derivative from the root word zeal from the Greek zelos.Jesus is passionate about His Father God because He is the Son of God. Passionate committed to the things of His Father God He is wrestling the strongholds of the enemy off of him because they rightfully belong to His Father. While my Lord was on earth he carried within him an intense desire and an enthusiasm to do these things

because He loves God His Father and was pleased to do his will that is why he came down to this world I find myself living in because the same intensity that marked his life manifests the love of God towards me Jesus Christ my Lord expects commands the very same from me. Can I do this? The answer would have to be no. Only God the Holy Spirit who dwells within me can equip and enable me to do this. I look at my Lord in this passage and what is very clear is that he has come to do the will of God his Father and he expects the very same of me. There is one crucial element in all of this that I have to take on board and that is that I can do nothing without God the Holy Spirit’s help the Son of God Jesus Christ my Lord left his own power behind as one who is God and became totally reliant on God the Spirit to help Him to please the Father in being obedient the very same Holy Spirit is available to me and I can only be successful in pleasing God when I rely on Him in my obedience to God the only way to die to self and me because my earthly mind fights this and will do so until I am called home to glory. Sacrifice and obedience is better than any offering that costs me nothing because He the Son of God my Lord gave His life for me so that my life would be his to do with what he chooses he has given to me the prize of eternal life and I have to show the same characteristics of love to my brothers and sisters and the lost and only he can help me do that. I can enjoy the physical life I live and the spiritual life as long as I keep trusting in the Holy Spirit He is the key to all of this. (18) Still the Jews did not recognize who he is because they ask for a sign when John refers to the Jews it is mostly about the Jewish Religious Leaders and not the ordinary public although they too can have the same ideas For them to believe who Jesus Christ declared himself to be depended on a sign and not what he said would mean that they would forever be looking for signs not believing his own spoken word to them that he is God and the Father and he are one they could not get by that stumbling block Jesus knew this. I cannot allow my faith in Jesus Christ to be built solely on the spectacular because that is not what he is about I am to trust in the invisible God who is visible in all that I see in the eyes of the spiritual realm things that cannot be seen with my earthly sight but are nevertheless still there. A leap of trust in the person of Jesus Christ as one who is God which certainly was not present in these Jews who asked for a sign from him Regretfully most of the world leaders are like this because they do not see Jesus Christ my Lord in the flesh they draw the conclusion that

he is not there a very grave error because God can be seen in his creation it speaks of his creativity and is meant to lead them to repentance before Him He who is God who continues to hold out open arms before them but it will not always be the case rebellion is still there within them and their own wisdom has dug a hole that they are desperately trying to climb out of The apostle Paul in one of his epistle’s commands me to pray for these leaders that while they still breathe there is hope that God the Holy Spirit can turn them from the course that they are presently on to Jesus Christ the Son of God and have their lives radically changed what a huge difference that would make to the world I live in but at present they all have the mind set of the Jews mentioned here. God’s Spirit can make the difference in my life and the lives of others including the world’s Leaders. (19) They would get a sign of a great miraculous wonder the magnitude of which they would never see again a once off event neither space, nor time, nor the vastness of the universe in which the earth is only a small part of in comparison it is insignificant and even all of that is nothing to the one who it is made through and holds it together including the Jews who demand a sign of him whose lives God his Father breathes life into the physical breath whose earthly lives could be cut off from the living in the fraction of a second. To my mind incomprehensible because of my human mortality He is God I am not so what he can do I cannot do. I find it difficult to put into words all that God is simply because He is God there is no human language to describe all of his awesomeness the Supreme Being in majestic splendour. What limits me does not limit Him He can walk on water rise into the sky still the waves and calm the wind and much, much more. Science does not restrict Him as it does me because He made it and it is in obedience to Him. Incredible and absolutely staggering there are those of the created order including humans who deliberately with intent defy Him and know such actions lead to a terrible spiritual death believing the lie that there is no other life after the earthly demise completely irrational and what I would call infantile behaviour it is worse than that because you can tell infants how to behave and they can be quicker to latch on to something they see in adults that they cannot see in themselves The Jews as John the apostle describes them can see there is something that marks Jesus out from them but they have no idea what it is they know he is a teacher known in Jewish terms as a Rabbi so they expect a sign from him in their unbelief and ignorance what they do not

know is the one who stands before them is God unknown to them they are the creativity of his hands how astonishing is their unbelief and hardness of heart because he declares to them in his own voice and tongue who he is by telling them what they and the rest of the Jews would do to him at some point in the future they would try to destroy the temple which is his body and in the next part of the verse gives a clue to his true identity after they had destroyed him he would raise his body after three days.I have no idea what must have went through their hearts and minds when they heard this from Jesus but they thought he was talking about the temple built with bricks or did they or were they afraid of what Jesus was saying of himself and had not made up their minds concerning Him He was pointing them in the direction of himself as one who is their God even although they did not know it He is my God as well as theirs. Even although they did not know who he was and saw him only as a man Jesus continued to love them as he does the world and his church which was still to be established through his apostles guided and helped by God the Holy Spirit (22) John reminds me that this was said for the benefit of the disciples they would remember this after their Lord and my Lord had risen from the dead and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had said. The spoken word while accompanied by the Spirit of God is very powerful indeed and leads to the conversion of souls only God can do this.They believed the scripture I believe the scripture in question is Isaiah 42:23 “ Who among you will give ear to this? Who will listen and hear for the time to come?” I believe this is the text my Lord had spoken of to the disciples and had also given his own word and they believed the Old Testament text and the word He had spoken to them. But I believe my risen glorified Lord has given me this to ponder on deep in my heart and act upon as guided and influenced by God the Holy Spirit. Great is the Lord God of heaven and earth who with His Son the Lord Jesus Christ and God the Holy Spirit is deserving of my praise honour love adoration and worship because of his unmerited favours He showers upon me every day and night his love compassion mercy and pity and from the abundance of his heart he gives me every good thing but more precious and greatest of all is the gift of his Son my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ worthy of all my praise and love my life belongs to Him unreservedly. Amen

Jesus knows the thoughts of humanity John.2:23-25 Many believed in the name of Jesus because of the miracles he had performed but I believed in Jesus because his Spirit spoke to me through the preaching of his word there were no supernatural occurrences as men would understand them the miracle was God speaking to me through the Holy Spirit that is not to say I do not believe in the supernatural abilities of God because I do. However; H e can work through the mundane as well as the spectacular with one common thread bringing his people to faith in himself. Jesus issues a warning to me the fact that my trust in him as Lord must not be founded upon miracles it must be deeply rooted and grounded in Him alone (24) Many a Christian’s faith has floundered upon the rocks because they believed in miracles to strengthen their faith and when there is no miracles of the spectacular their faith weakens and dies because it is a trust built on signs and wonders and not in and through the person of Jesus Christ. I need to have an experience of God all of the time to know Him seeing angels everywhere I look so that my trust in God can be increased when I do that my faith is very superficial. I am not trusting in Jesus Christ my Lord and my faith would be shallow indeed yes I have had supernatural experiences with God. but it is in the ordinariness of my life in which He works best no fanfare of trumpets only the still small voice and being obedient to God’s commands. A warning to us all whether born again or not can be found in the gospel of Matthew and when I looked at it a check was put upon my spirit and looking at it closely the gravity of my errors are exposed to the brilliant light of God How foolish we who are mortal can be.cf. Mtt.9:4. (But Jesus knowing their thoughts said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts?”) Any wrong thought is evil and God can see it whether I am judging a brother and a sister or being envious of them gossiping it all constitutes sin I am not to do it. The point is that Jesus Christ my Lord can see everything I think say and do there is no hiding place and this should be reflected in all that I do and say.