Grabbed by glory

As we've been working our way through John's gospel I've been struck again and again and again by Jesus revealing his glory and peoples reactions to it.  Jesus (1:14) dwells among us and "we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father."  John the baptist responds to it, as do Andrew, and Philip.  In Chapter 2 Jesus performs his first sign at the wedding in Cana and through it he manifests his glory to his disciples.  Everywhere you look in John Jesus is making the glory of God manifest, he is revealing God, he is unveiling his nature as Messiah and son of God.

And seeing that glory captivates people.  With the disciples it draws them to follow Jesus, to grow in their belief in him.  With the woman at the well it leads her to forget all about her water jar, the purpose of her visit and rush back to town to tell everyone about Jesus.  Seeing God's glory in Jesus fuels growing faith, discipleship, obedience and mission.

So when we are struggling with our faith, discipleship, obedience and mission it might be worth asking is it because we have stopped seeing God's glory in Jesus?  Have we become distracted from it?  Have we stopped mining it in search of more understanding of who Jesus is and the Father he brings us to know?

What to do with Lent?

Lent has become a bit of a monster with people giving up chocolate, sweets, and all manner of other things and proudly telling everyone they can about it.  But does that idea of giving up just reinforce the idea of being good to earn salvation?  Does it simply reinforce the idea that God is a killjoy who wants to deny us pleasure and enjoyment, hence giving up something we enjoy makes him happy?  I know that's not the idea behind it but I think that's got lost somewhere.

This year I'm encouraging Grace Church not to give up but to take up.  We're giving out reading plans for lent on Sunday.  40 days of Bible readings in John's gospel which is the book we are preaching through after Easter.  The hope is that if people agree to read these then they can chat about them and their questions over coffee on Sunday before and after the service and even during the week.  The aim is to get God's word even more active than it is already among God's people.

Here's the reading plan:

Weds 18th Feb John 1v1-18

Thurs 19th Feb John 1v19-34

Fri 20th Feb John 1v35-51

Sat 21st Feb John 2v1-12

Sun 22nd Feb

Mon 23rd Feb John 2v13-25

Tues 24th Feb John 3v1-21

Weds 25th Feb John 3v22-36

Thurs 26th Feb John 4v1-42

Fri 27th Feb John 4v43-54

Sat 28th Feb John 5v1-18

Sun 1st Mar

Mon 2nd Mar John 5v19-47

Tues 3rd Mar John 6v1-24

Weds 4th Mar John 6v25-59

Thurs 5th Mar John 6v60-71

Fri 6th Mar John 7v1-24

Sat 7th Mar John 7v25-52

Sun 8th Mar

Mon 9th Mar John 8v1-30

Tues 10th Mar John 8v31-59

Weds 11th Mar John 9v1-23

Thurs 12th Mar John 9v24-41

Fri 13th Mar John 10v1-21

Sat 14th Mar John 10v22-42

Sun 15th Mar

Mon 16th Mar John 11v1-27

Tues 17th Mar John 11v28-57

Weds 18th Mar John 12v1-26

Thurs 19th Mar John 12v27-50

Fri 20th Mar John 13v1-17

Sat 21st Mar John 13v18-38

Sun 22nd Mar

Mon 23rd Mar John 14v1-31

Tues 24th Mar John 15v1-27

Weds 25th Mar John 16v1-33

Thurs 26th Mar John 17v1-26

Fri 27th Mar John 18v1-18

Sat 28th Mar John 18v19-40

Sun 29th Mar

Mon 30th Mar John 19v1-16

Tues 31st Mar John 19v17-42

Weds 1st Apr John 20v1-18

Thurs 2nd Apr John 20v19-31

Fri 3rd Apr John 21v1-14

Sat 4th Apr John 21v15-25

The world pulled over your eyes to blind you.

Can you trust the Bible? I guess if you are a Christian you instinctively answer yes. But do we? In looking at John 16 last we saw that Jesus confronts his disciples with the fact that the world will hate them. That it will put them out of the synagogue and even kill them all the time maintaining that in doing so they are serving God. Is that how we think of the world?

My hunch is that it isn't. In fact the world trumpets its tolerance of all religions therefore it would argue it does not hate us. However, when we stand up for the truth of the gospel that there is no other way to God but through faith in Jesus Christ, when we explain to people what the truth is about what the Bible has to say about their standing before God, then we see through the worlds tolerance. Because telling the gospel provokes reaction and all too often hostile reaction.

We must not let ourselves be fooled into thinking the world love the Christian or even that it tolerates us. The world will tolerate the nominal believer, it will tolerate the liberal believer, but it will do everything it can to silence a gospel believer, even saying it does so in honour of its notion of God or gods.