Scripture selections are taken from the Rock Church Daily Bread Reading schedule for each month. “Lena’s Journalin’” are Lena’s comments on the specific passages from her Daily Journal.

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John 1:1-51 -

The Life-Light
1The Word was first, the Word present to God, God present to the Word. The Word was God,
2in readiness for God from day one.
3Everything was created through him; nothing--not one thing!-came into being without him.
4What came into existence was Life, and the Life was Light to live by.
5The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn't put it out.
6There once was a man, his name John, sent by God 7to point out the way to the Life-Light. He came to show everyone where to look, who to believe in. 8John was not himself the Light; he was there to show the way to the Light.
9The Life-Light was the real thing: Every person entering Life he brings into Light.
10He was in the world, the world was there through him, and yet the world didn't even notice.
11He came to his own people, but they didn't want him.
12But whoever did want him, who believed he was who he claimed and would do what he said, He made to be their true selves, their child-of-God selves.
13These are the God-begotten, not blood-begotten, not flesh-begotten, not sex-begotten.
14The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, Generous inside and out, true from start to finish.
15John pointed him out and called, "This is the One! The One I told you was coming after me but in fact was ahead of me. He has always been ahead of me, has always had the first word."
16We all live off his generous bounty, gift after gift after gift.
17We got the basics from Moses, and then this exuberant giving and receiving, This endless knowing and understanding--all this came through Jesus, the Messiah.
18No one has ever seen God, not so much as a glimpse. This one-of-a-kind God-Expression, who exists at the very heart of the Father, has made him plain as day.

Thunder in the Desert
19When Jews from Jerusalem sent a group of priests and officials to ask John who he was, he was completely honest. 20He didn't evade the question. He told the plain truth: "I am not the Messiah."
21They pressed him, "Who, then? Elijah?" "I am not." "The Prophet?" "No."
22Exasperated, they said, "Who, then? We need an answer for those who sent us. Tell us something--anything!-about yourself."
23"I'm thunder in the desert: "Make the road straight for God!' I'm doing what the prophet Isaiah preached."
24Those sent to question him were from the Pharisee party. 25Now they had a question of their own: "If you're neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet, why do you baptize?"
26John answered, "I only baptize using water. A person you don't recognize has taken his stand in your midst. 27He comes after me, but he is not in second place to me. I'm not even worthy to hold his coat for him."
28These conversations took place in Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing at the time.
The God-Revealer
29The very next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and yelled out, 30"Here he is, God's Passover Lamb! He forgives the sins of the world! This is the man I've been talking about, "the One who comes after me but is really ahead of me.' 31I knew nothing about who he was--only this: that my task has been to get Israel ready to recognize him as the God-Revealer. That is why I came here baptizing with water, giving you a good bath and scrubbing sins from your life so you can get a fresh start with God."
32John clinched his witness with this: "I watched the Spirit, like a dove flying down out of the sky, making himself at home in him. 33I repeat, I know nothing about him except this: The One who authorized me to baptize with water told me, "The One on whom you see the Spirit come down and stay, this One will baptize with the Holy Spirit.' 34That's exactly what I saw happen, and I'm telling you, there's no question about it: This is the Son of God." Come, See for Yourself
35The next day John was back at his post with two disciples, who were watching. 36He looked up, saw Jesus walking nearby, and said, "Here he is, God's Passover Lamb."
37The two disciples heard him and went after Jesus. 38Jesus looked over his shoulder and said to them, "What are you after?" They said, "Rabbi" (which means "Teacher"), "where are you staying?"
39He replied, "Come along and see for yourself." They came, saw where he was living, and ended up staying with him for the day. It was late afternoon when this happened.
40Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, was one of the two who heard John's witness and followed Jesus. 41The first thing he did after finding where Jesus lived was find his own brother, Simon, telling him, "We've found the Messiah" (that is, "Christ"). 42He immediately led him to Jesus. Jesus took one look up and said, "You're John's son, Simon? From now on your name is Cephas" (or Peter, which means "Rock").
43The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. When he got there, he ran across Philip and said, "Come, follow me." 44(Philip's hometown was Bethsaida, the same as Andrew and Peter.)
45Philip went and found Nathanael and told him, "We've found the One Moses wrote of in the Law, the One preached by the prophets. It's Jesus, Joseph's son, the one from Nazareth!" 46Nathanael said, "Nazareth? You've got to be kidding." But Philip said, "Come, see for yourself."
47When Jesus saw him coming he said, "There's a real Israelite, not a false bone in his body." 48Nathanael said, "Where did you get that idea? You don't know me." Jesus answered, "One day, long before Philip called you here, I saw you under the fig tree."
49Nathanael exclaimed, "Rabbi! You are the Son of God, the King of Israel!"
50Jesus said, "You've become a believer simply because I say I saw you one day sitting under the fig tree? You haven't seen anything yet! 51Before this is over you're going to see heaven open and God's angels descending to the Son of Man and ascending again."

Copyright Statement: THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary LanguageThis edition issued by contractual arrangement with NavPress, a division of The Navigators, U.S.A.Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language Copyright © 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.

~ Lena’s Journalin’
There’s a big question here that each of us has to ask ourselves, “Do we believe the Word of God?” Really believe it? Or has it been like a story book or, a book of encouragement, or an honored ancient manuscript?
If we believe God’s words as Holy True words to us from the Father of all creation, do we regard it as His, for they are one and the same, and do we believe in what it says? Everything was created by God and for God, His Son is one with Him, as God?
There was darkness. Ever felt you are in darkness? He is the Light, whenever He comes bringing life, His light shines as truth in darkness. Every person coming into eternal life He brings into the light.
Does that make you feel a bit uncomfortable? Why? Light exposes whatever needs exposure, to live. If not exposed, we die. Such as in the case of cancer. If left hidden from the light, it does it’s work in darkness until darkness overtakes. Darkness’ desire is to overtake and overcome, BUT Jesus came to dispel all darkness and the powerful force it has to kill us, to destroy the life of God out of us. His light cannot be overcome with darkness, if we choose to walk into the discomforting light, be revealed for who we are, and saved, removing the deeds of darkness, and their effects, such as cancer, we can be saved.
If cancer does not come out into the light, meaning it is exposed in its works against the body, it will destroy the person, It must be revealed in order to deal with it, in order to destroy it! The light won’t allow it to destroy, but completely annihilate its destructive work in darkness!
When we walk in the light of Christ, however uncomfortable that is, we will find who we really are, only in Him. The real us may be hidden in darkness, but when we believe He is who God said He is then and only then will we find who we are. We can seek high and low far and wide and spend a whole lifetime searching for the real me, but the real me is only found in the real Him!
John knew who he was with no hesitancy. He knew His purpose, was sent to do it and accomplished it. He knew Christ was from God, and also found that He was sent by God.
We cannot even point the way to God until we find ourselves in Christ. Once we find ourselves we won’t be able to stop pointing the way.
It doesn’t even take long, If we seek, find, and follow Him, we can also reveal Him.
What are we after? Him or self satisfaction? He asked them leading questions to see why they’d even go after Him at all. Was it worth it to them, is it worth it to us? Jesus said, “Follow me”.
Can we do that, or do we want God to follow us wherever it is we are going?
It is childish to turn around and walk another way, hoping someone will run after you. We play games like that with daddy when we are young. When we are alder, we may even play that game, with people, hoping they love us enough to come after us or go get us, find us.
God is asking us to follow His son, come into the light, come out of hiding, stop running away, turn around and follow Him. It is time for maturity. Yes, God loves you. He loves you so much that He’ll let you live life your own way, do whatever you want however you want, whenever you want, just don’t be too surprised when you decide you’ve had the fill of your “oats” and you turn thinking you’ll; face Him now, but He and His followers are long gone, distance has widened its gap.
It is time to fill in all breeches! Amen!

Daily Repetitive Verses:

Isaiah 58:12 You'll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past. You'll be known as those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, make the community livable again. THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language