The Utterance of God

John 1:1-18   

Paraphrased:

Before anything was, there was the Utterance. This Utterance was the Voice of God, and it was God's Voice. This vocal Utterance was the beginning of everything that is. Everything that exists is the result of this Voice saying it. Nothing could exist that wasn't spoken into existence. This Utterance is alive, and His life gives Light to mankind. This Light shines into our darkness, and our darkness refuses to understand it.

Then John came to tell us about that Light. He wasn't the Light, he only knew about it and told us, so that we would believe. The true Light was coming, that could give light to everyone. 

He came into the world, and although He created the world, it did not want to acknowledge Him. He even came to His own Chosen People, but they didn't even want to accept Him. But all those who would accept Him, He caused to be born into God's own Family, conceived not through natural, fleshly means, but from God Himself.  

This Utterance took upon Himself human nature and lived with us. We are eye-witnesses to His magnificence, the majesty of the Only One, Son of God the Father, filled with grace and Truth.

John is giving his legal testimony--he announces clearly that: This is the Man I talked about before, that the Man who appears after me has the pre-eminence before me, because He existed before I was born. We have all received blessings on top of blessings from the super-abundance of His grace. Moses gave us the Law--Grace and Truth are brought to us by Jesus Christ. God the Father cannot be seen by the human eye, but God the Son, who is equal in substance to the Father, has shown Him to us.   

Wake us up, Father!

II Chronicles 7:12-14   

Pray it:

O my Father, You have told us that, "When I shut up the heavens so there is no rain," for us that would be, "Afflict your economy so that there are no jobs, no income;" or "Command the locusts to devour the land," for us that would be, "Send the bill collectors and tax men to eat up all you have saved for the future, for retirement;" or , "Send a plague among my people," for us that would be, "Cause your Federal Government to rob you of your personal and states rights;" then Father, please open our eyes to see that this is what You are doing, and wake up Your people, to humble ourselves before You, acknowledging that You are calling us to seek Your face, turning away from all the worldly and wicked schemes we've relied on, and ask Your forgiveness for these ways, and instead living our lives in honesty and love for You and our fellow sojourners, following Your ways and attitudes.  O Father God, hear our prayer; forgive our sins, teach us Your ways, to heal this land that once served You.  Turn us back to Yourself, O Lord, show the nations of the world how You bless Your own, and draw them, also, to Your beautiful self.   

Worry

Matthew 6: 25-34   

Personalized:

Oh Bonnie, you don't need to worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear.  Don't you consider your life more important than food and your body more important than your clothes?  Bonnie, look at the birds; they don't garden or store up food yet your Father feeds them.  Aren't you much more valuable than they are?  How can worryng add anything to your life? And why, Bonnie, do you worry about your clothes? See how the wild lilies grow.  They don't work or make cloth; yet I tell you that even Solomon in all his splendor was not dressed as beautifully as one of these flowers, which bloom today and wither tonight!  Oh, Bonnie, don't have such small faith that you question what you may have to wear, or to eat or drink! Those who are worldly run after all these worldly things.  But you, Bonnie, set your focus on God's kingdom, and build His righteousness into your daily life; and all these worldly things will also be given to you while you are in this world and need them.  So don't worry about tomorrow, Bonnie, my dear; tomorrow will worry about itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Loving

Matthew 22:34-40    

Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharasees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?"

Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."    

I personalized this:

Bonnie, I want you to love Me with all your emotion, with all your psyche and with all your intelligence. Love Me with your passion, with your understanding and with your knowledge of Me. I want you, Bonnie, to love Me with everything I made you to be.   

And I want you to express your love for Me in every relationship you have--to love other people with the same thoughtful consideration you would give Me, or even yourself. If you do this, Bonnie, then you will be obeying and carrying out all My commandments, all My will for you.   

"Get thee behind me, Satan!"

Matthew 16:39&42

[Jesus] prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as You will."

He prayed, "My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may Your will be done."

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus reveals His humanity, in shrinking away from the whole purpose for his becoming a Man--to "drink that cup" of suffering and separation from His Father. We know that He had real, genuine, strong temptation to not succumb to the Father's will, by both this passage and also when He had spoken to Peter at the Last Supper: 

(v.23) Jesus turned and said to Peter "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.   

Jesus had been telling his closest friends about how he would be killed and rise from the dead and Peter, in his loyalty, wanted to protect him: but Jesus replied very strongly, saying, in effect, I will not allow you to be an enabler, enabling me to not have to go through with this! It must have been a strong temptation, to allow Peter to fight on his behalf, as he really didn't want to have to go through with it. We see Jesus passionately fighting the enemy, and emerging victorious!

Jesus was always in tune with his Father, and had agreed to this course before they even created this world. This is why Jesus was born--to die. We are each born so we can live. He came to take our sin upon himself. He had to be human in order to qualify to carry our sin-infested nature upon himself on the Cross, and he had to be God to be the eternal Person who could pay our eternal debt in time. So Jesus "became sin, for us," each one of us.

Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

Marriage

It has occurred to me lately that the church leaders may be mistaken that the primary purpose of Marriage is procreation. I think having children is a consequence of marriage, but not its central purpose. I think God gave us Marriage to illustrate our relationship to Him.

He designed our male and female bodies to fit together in such a perfect way to become "one flesh" in the marital act. No two men nor two women are anatomically capable of producing this perfect union of bodies as a man and a woman can in the safety of Marriage.

That is why God gives His approval on the marital act within Marriage, and why any other sexual union is an aberrration, a twisting, of what God designed.

God is totally "other" from us, and calls us His wife, and the bride of Christ. Jesus prayed that we would be one with Him as He is one with the Father. He wants that intimate relationship with us.  

Taking My Own Advice to Others

Journal of December 28, 2009

It has been my advice to others who are beginning to read Scripture on a daily basis that if they should miss a day or so in their readings to not go back to "catch up" if they miss more than a day, so as not to overwhelm them with the amount to be read, but just pick up on "today's" reading & not worry about what was missed.

Well, I finally took my own advice yesterday. I had spent Christmas with my daughter Sarah with her family while her husband Tim was in the Philippines, and I missed two days of readings while I was there; then yesterday I merely looked over what I had "missed" in Nehemiah and Revelation, reading only the headings to get my bearings, and then read yesterday's reading. It was not easy for me, but I did it! It's not easy for me to leave anything unread, but I trust that I have not "missed" anything I need, that God has provided me everything I need to know and have and study at this time, as well as what I need to maintain my health & heal this broken hip [which I broke on Oct. 21 and the bone was healed in six weeks; I was then using a cane, while I regained muscle tone and strength which took another four weeks.]. Praise the Lord for His bountiful provision of everything we need in abundance!