The Light Shines in the Darkness

08/11/11

The first book I'm going to be blogging from is John. I asked my youth group what I should blog about first and they suggested it... Why you may ask? John talks a lot about God's love. And who can go wrong from the Gospel? We never really take the time to read the Gospels because we all know the story of Jesus, so we always think there's nothing new to learn from them. But really, there is so much to learn... The best stories and words of wisdom come from the Gospels. So, here we go!

I started out with John chapter 1, the first half. I want to kind of take this a little bit at a time because I don't want to read a whole lot then have to write a book about a whole chapter... You know. :)

Summary of what I read:

Well John talks about the Word. How the Word is God and through the word all things were made.

John 1:4-5 (NIV) says,
"In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it."
(The Message)
"What came into existence was Life, and the Life was Light to live by. The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn't put it out."

I really love it both ways. I like the way NIV put it because of the last half-sentence when it says "but the darkness has not understood it", you really don't expect it to say that and to me it didn't make sense at first, but I like it because we really DO use the Word as our life/light. That is our shield and sword, our defense against the Devil, even though the Devil might know the some bible verses and people that are living in the darkness might know some bible verses, but the only reason some people might be not living in the light is because do they really understand the Bible?? If they understood what it was saying, you'd think they would believe in it. And the Devil might know what the Bible says, but he really doesn't understand it at all. You understand things by FEELING... By living it. And that's how the Word is our life, our light. It keeps us alive. (By the way, I have no idea if this makes any sense, so I hope you can stay with me!!)

I also like the way the Message puts it though because it says "The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn't put it out." What I picture when I read this is a forest fire at night.... Ha ha. Just a huge fire that no one can put out, and that's what our faith should be like you know! A huge forest fire that is raging in our hearts, and NO ONE can put it out!!! People want to bring us down, by questioning our faith (that's what Satan tries to do, is test our faith and he wants us to fail..) and putting out that fire in our hearts, but we won't let it happen! Because that forest fire will bring new and wonderful things into our life :)) Ha ha.

So moving on to the next part here....

After that, John talks about the Word becoming Flesh. Which means, Jesus! The Word is God and it's becoming flesh, which is God, sending his one and only son to earth, becoming a human like all of us.

John 1:12-13 (NIV) says,
"Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God- children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God."
(The Message)
"But 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. These are the God-begotten, no blood-begotten, not flesh-begotten, not sex-begotten."

So in other words.... RECEIVE GOD!!!! He loves you so much. Want Him with all your heart!!!! Love him back!! Don't you want to be a child of God? Your TRUE self???? I do :) That sounds way better than being worldly... The world really has nothing that I want, nothing that satisfies me more than my God. Whenever I walk a different path than the one God has for me, even just for a few days, I feel like I'm being a fake me. A whole different person...

(I hope this doesn't sound too cheesy, ha ha.)

John 1:14
"The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."

He is totally full of grace and truth! I love how this verse says "he made his dwelling among us" Jesus walked this earth with us mere humans that believe we're so worthless, but in God's eyes, we are totally NOT worthless to Him! When we die we're going to up there with God, the one who can move mountains, cure diseases, the one with our lives in his hands. It's just so amazing to think of!!!!!!

Okay, I'm done with my rant. :o)

After that, John denied being the Christ, everyone thought since he was baptizing people and was so wise (which he totally was and did have visions from God about Jesus coming!!) and told everyone about how little he was compared to Christ. I don't know why but I love this little section about John denying being Christ. He's being so true to everyone and God while the Levites are getting mad at him for baptizing... Even though he knows that what God called him to do. I just like that he doesn't care that they're getting mad, he stays true to God while he tells them who he really is.

So that was all I read today. But it definitely was GOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Don't you agree? :)

God loves you so much and I really hope these blogs make sense and encourage whoever starts to read these... Ha ha. Post your view on these verses, I would love to know what you think!! Open your hearts to God, he wants to use you in so many amazing ways. You just got to let him.