Thursdays Child-John 1:10,11

This week on Thursdays Child we're going to skip over verses 6-9 of John 1because they deal with John The Baptist, and we'll talk about him in more detail later. So, this week I would like to start with verse 10 which says, "although the world was made through Him the world did not recognize Him." 11) Even in His own land and among His own people He was not accepted. The key phrase here is "being accepted." Of course, they recognized Him in the literal since of the word. So how was it they didn't they recognize Him? As the Messiah. As their Savior. Now a big question would be, why didn't they? As I was thinking about this I applied it to my own life. I left Florida at 18 years old. If I had gone back at 30, and I came upon my cousin baptizing people in a lake, and he started saying "look, there is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" I don't think I would get such a warm welcome either. I could imagine being ignored at first then if I would have done the same things Jesus did I could imagine being treated the same way. Granted, Jesus grew up living a sinless life, and none of us can claim that. But still they knew Him as just a carpenter's son. Fortunately alot of people outside of His own town did believe. I think we need to remember that all through the Bible there are stories of God using the so called "lower class" of people to do the greatest things. So, never forget that even though we may not think we have what it takes to do great things God sometimes has a different plan. Thanks for searching with me, Paul

Thursdays Child- What's In A Name

This week on Thursdays Child I'd like to try to answer a question I've been having since we started in John. The question is, why is John calling Jesus "The Word?" I mean why couldn't he have just said "In the beginning Jesus already existed etc. etc." Well, on Crosswalk.com there are bible study tools you can go to. So, I went looking around and found a lexicon. I didn't know what that was but I checked it out anyway. I found that it translates English words to Greek and Hebrew. I also found that there are quite a few words used for the word, "word". Two that I was kind of familiar with were Logos, and Rhema. Rhema is used for the written word. Logos is used for the spoken word. There was also a note that said a philosopher named Heraclitus first used the term Logos to designate the divine plan which coordinates a changing universe. That is why John was using it here. Jesus spoke creation into existence, which changed the world, and He also came to earth as a human to change the world. If they would have written back then like we talk today it would be so much easier to understand, but I like being able to figure these things out. I just hope that you find it as interesting as I do, and that your questions are being answered as well. As I look over John 1:1-5 it looks like we've squeezed as much out of that as we possibly can, so we'll continue on next week. Thanks for searching with me, Paul

Sudden Revelation

One day back in March I was driving across Wyoming, coming back to Rapid City from Gillette. I was listening to a preaching cd. The preacher was was talking about God as Father and His love for us. He was saying that God is love. Now, that's a pretty common saying, but he went on to say something that really triggered something in me. He said, It's not like God has a pitcher of water that He distributes out love as we need it. He is love, He is the water, and the closer we get to Him we begin to experience that love more and more, and are able to share that love more and more. I've never been to Montana but Montana is called Big Sky Country. From what I have seen of Wyoming I think it could be called the same thing. Basically, I think that just means there is nothing to get in the way of seeing for miles,and miles. It's mostly prairie, and farm land. For me on this day that was an advantage. As this preacher was preaching I looked out of my windshield from left to right all along the horizon, and all I could see was blue sky as far as I could see. Not a cloud in the sky, just a round blue ceiling covering all of us, and it suddenly hit me that God literally is covering us with his love and all we need to do is just connect with Him and tap into that love. Could you imagine if we all did that how much better off this world would be? Shortly after my revelation I looked down noticed I was doing 82mph, noticed the flashing lights in my rear view mirror, pulled over, got my warning ticket, and continued on to Rapid City, but even that couldn't ruin my day. Thanks for searching with me, Paul

Thursdays Child-John 1:4,5

This week on Thursdays Child we'll continue with the gospel of John. Starting with verse 4. It says, "Life itself was in Him, and this life gives light to everyone. 5) This light shines through the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it. If we stop there for a moment and notice that just as we saw last week, verses 1-3 sent us back to Genesis. I think it's the same with verses 4 and 5. If we look back at Genesis 1:3, what was created on the first day? The very first thing created was the heavens and the earth, then on the first day God said let there be light, and there was light, and He separated the light from the darkness. As we also saw last week Jesus created everything that exists, so it's only natural that The Light (Jesus) created the light. Without getting off track too much let's just note that by the time this happened the angel Lucifer has already been kicked out of heaven, and now we have Satan (darkness) in the world as the opposing force to the Light. I think it's so cool that when we finally accept Jesus as our Savior we feel like the light bulb has finally come on and we realize that we were living in darkness all along, and this is how life was meant to be. We are actually living life like Adam and Eve knew it to be before they sinned, we just need to keep searching to be able to experience that one on one closeness with God. Thanks for searching with me Paul