Knowing Jesus

DEVOTION

GOSPEL OF JOHN

KNOWING JESUS

John 1:1-5

1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning.

3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

NIV

Well we wanted to get back to the New Testament for a while as Isaiah was not as inspiring as we need right now. So we wanted to be with Jesus more, then with Israel. Although we have done this gospel before some years ago, we thought it would be good to repeat it. When we think about the beginning, it takes us to the idea of time. Yet we know that God is not limited by time, or in fact God does not live in time. When he created, he created time as well. We live in time, we are linear beings, we have a beginning and for the most part we have an end, at least in this physical form we now occupy. So we simply accept the fact God uses the phrase “In the beginning” to indicate it was the beginning of time and the time of creation. It is almost beyond our understanding that God did not have a beginning, but here we are at our beginning. At that beginning of time, there was the logos, the Word, which in the Greek means something said, however we know in just a few more verses John makes the point the Word became flesh and dwelled among us. So we have to conclude this Word, Jesus was in the beginning. He was with God and he was God. Jesus is the Word, Jesus is God and Jesus was always God. He is not created, he is not linear, and he is eternal and was there when time and creation began. Although we mostly think about creation as the handy-work of God, it really is the hand of Jesus, as well as the Father and the Spirit. We really cannot separate the trinity. The triune Godhead is God, and so the three in one created, What John is making the point is that Jesus is God, he is divine, he is the one true God. He created all that is created. There is not a single thing in heaven or one earth that was not created by Jesus. He is the one who has the life, in him is life and he is the one, God, who breathed his life into us. He is the life, the light of men. He brought life into us. God gave us life, the Spirit gave us life, and Jesus gave us life. How blessed we are to have life, and our life is not so we can go spend it anyway we want. We can look back and see how Israel turned their back on God so many times and suffered for doing so. All of the people of the world are just as we are, having the breath of God in them, and created by God for God. But they are stepped out of the light and into the darkness. We once lived in that darkness. That darkness does not understand God as who he is, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The darkness blinds the hearts and minds of those who live in it. But praise God somehow he was able to grab me, draw me out of that darkness into his wonderful light. We lived in the city of sin and darkness and now we live in the city of light and love. The light shines into the hearts and minds of people and gives understanding. Now we know the Word, we know Jesus.