“Οὕτως γὰρ ἠγάπησεν ὁ Θεὸς τὸν κόσμον, ὥστε τὸν Υἱὸν τὸν μονογενῆ ἔδωκεν, ἵνα πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων εἰς αὐτὸν μὴ ἀπόληται ἀλλ’ ἔχῃ ζωὴν αἰώνιον.” (Ιωάννης 3:16)
Translation:
“For this is how so LOVED God the world: That the Son, the only begotten, He gave so that everyone believing in him, should not perish but have life eternal”. (John 3:16)
This morning’s reflection flows out this morning’s reading and from a conversation I had with a person at the Waffle House about “this world is not my home” and what he called his “yo-yo” struggle between turning towards God and turning towards the world.
This morning’s reflection contains diagrams and is a little more structured than most of my reflections. However, I wanted to make what I was saying more understandable.
Most people have this paradigm and diagram of their life as it relates to God and the World. Allot of churches teaches this diagram as do many contemporary worship songs and books. People feel they are caught in the middle between the two pulls of God and the world. Their diagram looks like this:
God <-----------Them -------------> World
God <------------Them: At times they feel they move in the direction of God and God is moving close to them. They attend a spiritual weekend or retreat, participate in an amazing prayer or worship gathering, or something else they feel moves them closer to God and in the opposite direction of the world.
Them --------------> World: Then they feel they slip back into the world and its daily life, struggles, and temptations. As the world pulls them towards it, they feel they are being pulled away from God. Moving towards the world they feel necessitates them moving away from God.
God <---------> Them <----------> World: Because of this diagram that many people have embraced of their life, they live in this constant struggle and strain of the tug-of-war of being pulled into God and being pulled towards the world. Moving towards God requires moving away from the world.
However this diagram is not correct. Nor is it Biblical. The whole movement of God as John 3:16 states and the salvation plan of God in the incarnation of Jesus, his becoming human, and his death and resurrection reveals is God moving into the world.
So let me show you what I believe is the correct diagram:
------------> God ------------> :The previous diagram focuses on us. First, let’s take ourselves out of the center and move God into the center were he belongs.
-------------> God -----------> World: Second: the mission of God, the movement of God, and the movement of the church is into the world, not away from it. God did not come into the world to set up sanctuaries set apart from the world, place his light hid under a basket separate from the world, but he came to set up mangers, and shine his light in the world.
Us-------------> God --------------> World: We are to move in the direction of God who is moving into the world. The mission of the church is to join in the Missio Deo, (the mission of God( which is to reach every nation, tribe and tongue, (Rev. 5:9) with the Gospel and make disciples of all nations (Matt 28:19). “As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.” (John 17:8), So Loved God The world.. (John 3:16)
We are called through the means of grace of prayer, searching the Scriptures, fasting, and sharing in the Lord’s Supper to move more intimately into God to more fully join in his mission of moving more intimately into the world. If you attend a church service on Sundays, you are moving towards God. If when you leave you isolate yourself from the world, you are moving against God.
The same John who wrote John 3:16 also wrote 1John 3:16. He writes:
“We have come to know love by this: that Jesus laid down his life for us; thus we ought to lay down our lives for our fellow Christians” And he goes on to say in verse 17, “But whoever has the worldʼs possessions and sees his fellow Christian in need and shuts off his compassion against him, how can the love of God reside in such a person?” Again, John’s focus is the sharing of our love we received from Jesus with those in the world. I can’t help but wonder, What if it was 1John 3:16, “We have come to know love by this: that Jesus laid down his life for us; thus we ought to lay down our lives for our fellow Christians” and not John 3:16 that was the most well-known, memorized and recited verse by Christians around the world. How would Christians live and evangelize differently?
My family, Read the Gospels and look at the examples of Jesus’ life. Read Philippians 2:5-7. Then pray and reflect over what diagram controls your life. During this season of Lent where we fast and pray to more intimately encounter Jesus, ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you how you can more fully join in with Jesus and this movement of God. I ask that you please pray the same for me. God bless you my friends!
Please share your thoughts and questions below.
Gary Liederbach- Lead Follower
One Direction Community
Email: garyl@onedirection.community
Website:https://www.onedirection.community
Facebook: One Direction Community-ODC
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I could use you’re the gift of your financial support for my family and those on the margins God has placed in my path I refuse to walk around. Please partner and support my family and ministries through setting up a monthly donation or a one –time gift by clicking the link below. Donation checks can be made out to ODC, 102 Champions Green Drive, Madison, Al 35758.
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“Now while Jesus was in Jerusalem at the feast of the Passover, many people believed in his name because they saw the miraculous signs he was doing. But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people. He did not need anyone to testify about man, for he knew what was in man.” (John 2:23-25)
When I these words of Jesus in this passage this morning my mind also went to these words Jesus.
“Not everyone who says to me, ʻLord, Lord,ʼ will enter into the kingdom of heaven - only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day, many will say to me, ʻLord, Lord, didnʼt we prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons and do many powerful deeds?ʼ Then I will declare to them, ʻI never knew you. Go away from me, you lawbreakers!ʼ”
(Matthew 7:21-23)
Jesus “knows” and “sees” into the heart of every person who ever walked this planet, including those people who claim to walk after Him, and that includes you and me. The issue in the passage of John is not whether their faith was genuine or not, but what the object of their faith truly was. These individuals, after seeing the miracles, believed Jesus to be the Messiah. They most likely saw in him a political figure of some sort. They did not understand how he would usher his reign on earth, what his revolution would look like, that he did not come to be served but to serve. They saw him as a holy man and miracle worker. Their concept of "Messiah" was was not the same as Jesus' own, or the concept of Jesus John had that he is trying to convey in his Gospel. Jesus, as he states in Matthew, sees the heart of these people and he has full knowledge that they do not truly know him, understand who he is: the sacrificial lamb, the bearer and redeemer of their sins, the man of the cross. They did not know him.
My family, Jesus knows your heart. This Sunday is Palm Sunday when enter into the holiest time in the season of the church, Holy Week. I pray you will set aside time to these coming days to read the passion narratives in the Gospels, pray, and ask the Holy Spirit to open up you heart to truly know Jesus, and know in your heart what your calling to follow him entails, in Jesus’ name. Please pray the same for me! God bless you my friends!
Please share your reflections and prayers with us on this blog in the comment box below.
Gary Liederbach- Lead Follower
One Direction Community
Email: garyl@onedirection.community
Website:https://www.onedirection.community
Facebook: One Direction Community-ODC
Give A Gift
I could use you’re the gift of your financial support for my family and those on the margins God has placed in my path I refuse to walk around. Please partner and support my family and ministries through setting up a monthly donation or a one –time gift by clicking the link below. Donation checks can be made out to ODC, 102 Champions Green Drive, Madison, Al 35758.
Thank You!
“A man came, sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify about the light, so that everyone might believe through him.” (John 1:6-7)
“Witness” is one of the major themes of John's Gospel. The Greek verb for “witness” is μαρτυρέω (mature). It occurs 33 times in John’s Gospel. When compared to the other three Gospels we have read, it appeared only once in Matthew, once in Luke, and zero times in Mark. And the noun for “witness”, μαρτυρία (marturia), occurs 14 times in John as compared to zero in Matthew, once in Luke, and 3 times in Mark. So “witness” occurs 47 times in John’s gospel as compared to 6 times in all of the three other Gospels combined.
The witness of John’s gospel testifies to the deity of Jesus and that "He was the true light, who gives light to everyone who comes into the world." This witness has a world view in mind. As we will read later in John 3:16, “God so loved the world”
“He came to what was his own, but his own people did not receive him.” (v.11) His own people did not receive him. There is a subtle irony here: When the “Word” came into the world, he came to his own, literally "his own things" and his own people, who should have received him, but they did not. John does not say that "his own" did not know him, but that they did not receive him. The idea is one not of mere recognition, the people recognized Him, witnessed who he was in his teachings and miracles, but they did not acceptance and welcome that witness into their life.
“The Word became flesh” (v.14). This verse constitutes the most concise statement of the incarnation in the New Testament. John 1:1 makes it clear that the Logos was fully God, but 1:14 makes it clear that he was also fully human so that Jesus could witness to us in person.
We are over half way through 40 days of Lent leading up to Holy Week and Easter. For these past weeks we focused inwardly on ourselves and our “receiving” of Him. We have personally meditated. We fasted, gave up and let go of things that were keeping us or are a distraction from personally receiving Him. We took on things that helped us personally receive Him. We will soon stand up on Sunday morning and declare personally and collectively as a church that we receive Jesus as a resurrected Lord. Now it is time to witness to others what we received.
“On the next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”(v.29) This is now are calling if we are truly a people of Easter,; to go and witness to others through sharing our testimonies, our witness, and the Gospel of grace and open up to others and invite them into the living scriptures and testimonies of our and say, “Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
The one time in Luke’s Gospel that the noun “Witness” is used is at the very end of the chapter right before John’s Gospel where it states,“and repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.”(Luke 24:47-47)
My family, the “You” in Jesus’ words, “You” are witnesses to these things” is YOU! The person’s reflection you see in the mirror! I pray you will not set aside these days of personal reflection and your preparation to celebrate the risen Jesus on Easter and just continue in life, but embrace your call to be a witness and today! Seek out at least one person and share with them “The lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world,” in Jesus’ name. Please pray the same for me. God bless you my friends!
Please share your reflections and prayers with us on this blog in the comment box below.
Gary Liederbach- Lead Follower
One Direction Community
Email: garyl@onedirection.community
Website:https://www.onedirection.community
Facebook: One Direction Community-ODC
Give A Gift
I could use you’re the gift of your financial support for my family and those on the margins God has placed in my path I refuse to walk around. Please partner and support my family and ministries through setting up a monthly donation or a one –time gift by clicking the link below. Donation checks can be made out to ODC, 102 Champions Green Drive, Madison, Al 35758.
Thank You!
Good morning, Lord Jesus. Open the eyes of my heart to see You--Father, Son, and Holy Spirit of God--as I look and listen for Your leading today.
"Now on that day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing Him.... So He went in to stay with them. When He was at the table with them, He took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized Him; and He vanished from their sight. They said to each other, 'Were not our hearts burning within us while He was talking to us on the road, while He was opening the Scriptures to us?'" (Luke 24:13-32).
The two disciples were on their walk back to Emmaus after all the events of the cross in Jerusalem. Jesus, they had known You and loved You, but in their grief and sorrow and disappointment, they couldn't see You. They "had hoped" that You were the Messiah, but now they thought all their hopes and dreams were shattered (v. 21). They had even heard stories of Your resurrection, but they were still "slow of heart to believe" (v. 22-25). Even when You came alongside them, they couldn't sense that it was You, they couldn't recognize Your voice, even though they had had such a personal relationship with You.
That may be a picture of many of us at times along our journey of faith. It has been mine at times in my life. We know You, we have a real and personal relationship with You, we know the stories of Your resurrection; but at the same time, down deep inside, we still find ourselves "slow of heart to believe." When our dreams and hopes are shattered, when tragedy strikes, when we find ourselves in those times of grief and sorrow and disappointment, we find it hard to see You and hear You. We can't even recognize and remember that You are with us--that You're with us "always," just like You promised (Matthew 28:24), that Your sheep "hear (Your) voice," just like You said (John 10:3).
But even in those times--maybe even especially in those times--You'll come near and go with us (Luke 24:15). You'll come in and dine with us in the communion of our hearts if we'll simply invite You in to come abide with us (v. 29). Just as You did with those two discouraged disciples who desperately needed an encounter with You, You're ready to come and commune with all who would "urge (You) strongly" to come and stay (v. 29).
In the breaking of the bread with them, "their eyes were opened, and they recognized (You)" (v. 30-31). In the breaking of the Bread of the Word of God with them, "(You) interpreted to them the things about (Yourself) in all the Scriptures" (v. 27). Then their hearts burned within them in fresh fire and faith, in renewed hope and excitement, from their personal encounter in Your Presence with Your Word (v. 32).
Thank You for walking with me on my journey with You, Lord Jesus. Thank You for opening up the Word of God to me, for revealing Yourself in Your Scriptures to me, "beginning with Moses and all the prophets" (v. 27). Thank You for coming to abide within me, for opening the eyes of my heart to see You, for making me more and more sensitive in my spirit to hear You. Thank You for the grace and faith to believe in my heart from my personal encounters in Your Presence with Your Word that "the Lord has risen indeed!" (v. 34) And thank You that every day You want walk with me and to arise in me! In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
My family, I pray this morning you strongly urge Jesus to come enter the dwelling of your heart so your heart burns within you with fresh fire and faith, in renewed hope and excitement on your journey with Jesus. Encounter His Presence by spending time in His Word, in Jesus' name! Please pray the same for me. God bless you, my friends!
If you have attended a Three-day weekend such as an Emmaus, Cursillo, or Paseo, please share your experiences and reflections from your weekend in the comment box below. Have questions about the weekend, contact me and I'd love to talk to you.
