Today Our Daily Bread John 1 ++

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’ Today~
The word is what God spoke and intended to speak, words to God are happenings, they are not words just to be said with no active manifestation. He doesn’t speak unless action is commanded. It says the words were waiting to be given charge! God is ONE, yet three persons. They are all different in personality and in calling, but they are all about the same purpose and happenings.
Father, Son, and Spirit, was speaking their purposes and then a man was made! Here it tells us of a man John. We see over times past, before John, that God was speaking and men and women were created and reproduced, to be what God was speaking in earth. Man is an active participant in the spoken words of God being made manifest. John’s name means “Jehovah is a gracious giver”. Why would God send a man whose whole life meant that? Every time his name was spoken it was like a trumpet sounding out- “God, (all three persons and personalities), is a Giver of a Gracious gift”? God, the three, had manifested in a few different ways on earth before this time, now an announcement was being made of another person of God becoming visible and not as in times past where He’d reveal Himself one personality at a time to a man here and there over years. He was about to come and show great grace to many at once and to everyone who wanted to see after that. In fact in only 33 years anyone who wanted to have God with them at all times wherever they were, while still on earth, could! Talk about grace!
God was using man once again as a trumpeteer, to tell others ahead of time what He was about to offer to everyone, a free gift of life with the understanding of the life. He was bringing the Son to demonstrate and to be seen visibly in manifestation before human eyes, to be in demonstration for 33 years and then prepare man for the Holy Spirit’s continual presence in earth.
Man had the same opportunity for self exaltation as Lucifer had in heaven. He was given an opportunity to serve God and point to God and in His ministry to God he could look like God in an aspect or two, because the anointing was on him to deliver the God message and the grace of God’s Spirit was on him to blow the trumpet. He could exalt himself with pride or he could do his “job” and point the way to the ONE, and then step out of the way as the way was paved for His appearing. The religious leaders were all about self exaltation, about inflicting laws and rules on the people that would make them appear God-like and holy, holier than others, which would give them earthly position. There was ONE coming who would make many declarations against pride and its earthly work. John had to be tested to see if he could point the way without getting in the way. He passed the test, literally!
The religious people were all about sacrifice; their lives were consumed by the need for sacrifice. They knew about slaying lambs for sin. They also knew all of the specific procedures that were required to even get to a place where a lamb could be sacrificed for your sins.
They had to start with the breeding of the lambs and make sure the bloodlines were pure and undefiled. They had to watch the sheep and make sure no marks appeared on them and marred them from being available for the sacrifices. They then had to bring them to the temple, they had to approach the temple properly and bring the animals to a priest who would be holy for them and do the work properly at the expense of his life. If they brought a spotted lamb, bye-bye priest! Everything had to be just and so. They knew that before God could be approached even with the sacrifices made there had to be a washing with water.
Here John is talking to Jewish people and says to them, hey look, there is THE LAMB of GOD! Not a lamb for the sacrifice of one offense and one sin, no he’s saying there is THE LAMB! Do you think they got that? Don’t you think their curiosity was sparked, what in the world is this trumpeteer saying? Is he saying what I think I heard him say?
Then notice John baptizing. Why was he doing that? Well ya know the washing thing? The procedure at the temple, before the approach of God? Was John saying they could be as priests and come to God themselves? I mean everyone had a desire to do that, but everyone knew they couldn’t, I mean even priests sometimes weren’t worthy and look at the priests, they are quite holy. Also when the priests went in to wash they just washed as a symbolism of being made clean for the people, they just washed their hands off. They’d just killed, had blood on their hands and had to wash earthly blood stains off of them before approaching God.
John was saying wash everything, wash your whole body so you can be forgiven. Who is this guy? This is why the priests were saying, “Who are you, God?” God is the only one who forgives sin, and don’t you know He only uses who He chooses? We are the holy bunch whom He’s chosen, who He’s called! Who do you think you are and what are you saying. Do you even know what you’re saying?
This was radical. Radical to their training, radical to what they thought, had been taught, had lived etc, radical.
So Jesus calls disciples, those who really want to know God-truth. So, who begins to follow Him? Jews do, those who’ve been taught things their whole life according to religious practice, those who practiced and studied “truth” or religion. Nathanael was one who spent his whole life searching. Don’t we all spend our whole lives searching for truth? Will we know it when it comes? Will we recognize it, Him? I pray so. Nathanael knew it, not in his reason, but in his heart. It did not match one thing he’d learned all of his life, but he knew it no matter, he knew it enough by the spirit to change the direction of his walk and re-learn what was really true.
This is why when a person really meets the Lord it is evidenced in his changed walk. You cannot say you know God and have met Jesus for real in the heart, and not the head, if you don’t change your walk. If you’ve really met Jesus your whole life changes. Where you go changes, your desires change. Yes you still get more and more of Him, but you change! The disciples of that day had a whole lot to learn on their new journey, but they began on it by walking a different path than they’d been on.

Proverbs 27:17-19
17 You use steel to sharpen steel, and one friend sharpens another. 18 If you care for your orchard, you'll enjoy its fruit; if you honor your boss, you'll be honored.
19 Just as water mirrors your face, so your face mirrors your heart.
Psalm 122:1
1 When they said, "Let's go to the house of God," my heart leaped for joy.