Take Aways: John 9-11

Another week has passed and I hope it was a good one for you all. One of my highlights was my son waking up super early and looking for me. He found me in the living room reading my Bible and said he would love to join me for devotions! It was just too cute hearing a four year old say that, and super sweet getting some cuddles while reading the Word - before the day really starts and I have to wrestle him to get any extra cuddles! Here are some of my thoughts while going through a few more chapters in the book of John. There are so many things to talk about in each chapter, but I focused my thoughts on the first things that jumped out at me.

John 9 - God's Purpose in our Weakness

Here we see an amazing miracle of Jesus giving sight to a man who was born blind. The disciples asked Jesus - whose sin caused this man to be born with blindness? Jesus replied - neither; his blindness was meant to fulfill God’s purpose. (verses 2-3) What is confusing for today is whether the answer Jesus gave about sin was only specific to this man or in general for all. Can we see our physical disabilities as uses for God’s purpose too? Whether we should or not, looking at it this way is a better thought experiment than wallowing in frustration and sadness about our inabilities. True, we see this man worshipped Jesus after his healing, but think of how much honor we give God when we can worship him before our healing comes. This miracle tells us to remember who we serve - we serve a miracle-maker. The words of the formerly blind man are poignant - “We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him.” (verse 31) Worship God now and trust the healing will come.

John 10 - Sheep in One Flock

How wonderful it is to count ourselves as sheep of Jesus! We will always belong to him because Jesus said - no one will take his sheep away from him! What’s curious here is verse 16, where Jesus says there are other sheep not currently in the fold. “And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” Regardless of my curiosity about what this means, this passage makes it clear that a goal of Jesus is to have one flock, one church, and be the head of it. This is a good reminder to seek unity within the Christian church and amongst other Christians. It's a good idea to participate in Christian programming, conferences, and other gatherings, where we'd get the opportunity to gather with Christian brothers and sisters from different churches. This will give us a taste of what heaven may look like, and dare I say - please God too.

John 11 - Keep the Faith

In this chapter, we again we hear Jesus say that something seemingly tragic and impossible to remedy will be used for the glory of God and to show that Jesus is from God. (verse 4) Jesus was still working on cultivating the faith of the disciples. Though they’ve witnessed other miracles accomplished by Jesus, their faith still needed to grow to believe that Jesus could do the impossible. This is encouragement for today - to know that God doesn’t require your faith to be absolutely perfect when you come to him. Come as you are and let Jesus cultivate and develop your faith as you faithfully follow his lead - just like his disciples followed and learned. God wants to walk with us and help us grow into strong leaders of faith. What also stood out to me in this chapter, is that the high priest prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation and bring all the children of God together. (verses 50-53) This led to the priests plotting to kill Jesus. The high priest was ultimately correct, even though the priests' plans were evil. This insight gives some encouragement, as tragic as it seems. Even in the most dire of times; even when people act wickedly towards each other, God has an ultimate plan in that chaos that is for his glory and that will draw God’s people together.

Blessings to you all in this next week!