Thoughts From the Bible

Read John 12: 26-33 - What would you do if you heard the audible voice of God? If you decided to run, where would you run to? I would certainly hope I would stop and listen. I would hope God Almighty would have my totally undivided attention. In this passage God was validating who He was and Jesus’ reason to be there. Jesus let the people know He knew what His purpose was. Verse 30, “Then Jesus told them, ‘The voice was for your benefit, not mine. the time for judging this world has come, when Satan, the ruler of this world, will be cast out.’” Those people listening had a decision to make and through this inspired Word of God, we have a decision to make. Be judged and found to be lacking in our commitment to Jesus or be judged and found to be a strident follower of Jesus. The Holy Spirit is the voice of God in our world today and if we take a few quiet moments to listen we can hear the voice of God and know Jesus was sent for us. The Holy Spirit is here for us to open H...

  Read  John 12:26 - “Anyone who wants to serve Me must follow me, because My servants must be where I am. And the Father will honor anyone who serves Me.” I think there is a closeness Jesus is telling the people He wants to have with those who follow Him. Service comes with commitment and the desire to be close to Christ. Jesus wants us to work to be close to Him and doing service is one of the steps to stay close to Jesus. God, the Father, then honors those who serve Jesus through whatever actions that may be. It may be in prayer. It may be in helping a neighbor. It may be contributing money to someone who is serving Christ also. It’s not the work or service that gives us benefits, it’s the action that shows our commitment to Christ.    

  Read John 12: 25- “Those who love their life in this world will lose it. Those who care nothing for their life in this world will keep it for eternity.” Jesus wanted us to get our priorities straight. We’ve heard it said before, the things in this life aren’t important. Our souls are what is important. Jesus wanted the disciples and us to see we need to keep our heads on straight and know our lives with others is what is important. When you realize just how few our days are on earth and you can see the end is not in the too-far-distant future, you see these words a little more clearly. You see a little more clearly that people matter, and their souls matter even more. This is one of those bits of information Jesus gave us to be ever watchful about our selfishness and make sure we don’t let that part of human nature be what drives us. The message of Jesus and Jesus’ principles should be driving us to our next day, not selfish goals or ambitions.

Read   John 12: 23-24 - Jesus replied, “Now the time has come for the Son of Man to enter into His glory. (24) I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels; a plentiful harvest of new lives.” I wonder if the disciples knew what Jesus was saying when He told them it was time to enter His glory. We have an understanding of what it meant but did the disciples? For very good reason, they seemed to stay in a constant state of astonishment. Did they know He was going to die? We know He died for us, plain and simple. He died so we could live and that is what Jesus tried to teach the disciples next. Because of what was coming next, Jesus knew untold others would come to know Him. It’s important we know this principle of giving of ourselves and how that has much greater impact than we can know. Life gives us many opportunities to exercise this principle, we have to cease the oppo...

Read   John 12: 19-36-   For me, this is one of the key passages of Jesus.  He has outlined what God’s plan was for Him and why.  It starts with Greeks coming to see Jesus.  In John 12: 20-21 we see this, “Some Greeks who had come to Jerusalem for the Passover celebration paid a visit to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee.  They said, ‘Sir, we want to meet Jesus.’”   This was not a random request mentioned in the Bible.  These Greeks may have been displaced Jews.  They may have been Gentiles.  What is clear, they were looking for Jesus.  They had heard of His power and who He was.  They sought out those who were known to be around Jesus and asked to be able to see Jesus.  Two things.  First, these people were looking for Jesus simply for who He was.  Even as seasoned Christians, we need to continue to look for Jesus in our lives and in the lives of others.   Second, they went to people who knew J...

Read  John 12 : 12-19 -  How many times do things happen that we don’t understand? We wonder how things could happen to us and to others and we just don’t understand the circumstances around the events.  The disciples found themselves in this same situation.  Time taught them what they needed to know, and we need to understand time will teach us also.   Verse 6 , “His disciples did not understand these things at first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written about Him and that they had done these things to Him.”  We have heard people say that God has our best interests a heart.  God also knows how important timing of things are to us also.  We need to trust God will give us what we need or let us know when we need to know things when His timing is good for us.  We have such a strong sense of time today.  God has a strong sense of concern for us and what is best ...

  Read  John 12: 12-16 -  We know there is much that happened around Jesus’ ministry, and we know there were people excited about Jesus but there were others who definitely were not.  We do know there were many people excited on this day when Jesus came into Jerusalem.  They were treating Jesus as a king or a conquering hero.  There was excitement because everyone knew Jesus was coming and would soon be in His presence.  These people had seen Him heal people, raise the dead and listened to the soul-changing words He had to say.  They were excited.   As Christians, we should be like those early followers, verse 13, “…a large crowd of Passover visitors took palm branches and went down the road to meet Him.  They shouted, ‘Praise God! Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the LORD!  Hail to the King of Israel.’”   That last sentence was heartfelt. How often do we think of Jesus as the true King of our lives?  How cl...

Read John 12: 9-11-  We need to be careful as Christians.  We need to know and accept that not everyone is as fond of Jesus as we are.  In this short passage, we see the chief priests plotting to not only kill Jesus but kill Lazarus.  Trying to silence someone is one thing, killing them is another.  The Bible is very clear.  The chief priests thought if they killed Lazarus it was basically scare people into not following Jesus.  The chief priests saw their followers leaving their influence and following the powerful influence of Jesus.   We need to understand and not run from the fact we are also in a battle against the powers of Satan who is working to bring down Jesus and any who would follow Him.  We need to pray and keep our eyes open for those who would work against the church whether on the outside of the church or inside the church.  The Holy Spirit will make us aware of those situation...

  Read   John 12: 6- 1-7- “But Jesus said, ‘Let her alone; she has kept this for the day of My burial. (8) For the poor you have with you always, but Me you do not have always.’”  Jesus used this situation to better explain to the disciples what would be happening soon in their lives.  He talked of His death which was something that was probably not being well received.  Jesus wanted them to know He was preparing for a truly stressful few days ahead.  I think Jesus wanted the disciples to understand He was preparing for His death and they needed to realize it was going to happen.  As the events surrounding the death and resurrection of Christ began to unfold, He wanted them to recognize what would be going on.   The second message of verse 8 was also important for them to know and it is also something we need to take to heart.  We still have people who are poor and who struggle to make a living.  Christ...