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Proverbs 7:1-8
1 My son, keep my words, And treasure my
commands within you.
2 Keep my commands and live, And my law as the
apple of your eye.
3 Bind them on your fingers; Write them on the
tablet of your heart.
4 Say to wisdom, "You are my sister," And call
understanding your nearest kin,
5 That they may keep you from the immoral
woman, From the seductress who
flatters with her words.
6 For at the window of my house I looked
through my lattice,
7 And saw among the simple, I perceived among
the youths, A young man devoid of understanding,
8 Passing along the street near her corner; And
he took the path to her house
Father God, circumcise our heart with this Book of
John’s, the one you loved so dearly. In
Jesus
name we pray, Amen!
Gospel of John 1:1-5
NKJV
The Apostle John is known as the
Apostle of Love, but in this Gospel there is so much more than love. It is
because of love God sent His only begotten Son to die and rise for us sinner.
It is because of love that Jesus came to this earth in human form to die and
rise for us. This book is about salvation and through salvation Love is
produced within the heart of a believer. This week’s lesson is about the deity
of Jesus Christ.
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word
was with God, and the Word was God.
In
the beginning; This
verse is all about the deity of Jesus Christ. These first few words don’t imply
that Jesus, God the Son had a beginning, but is referring to the beginning of
creation Genesis 1:1.
God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit always were and always
will be. This is the truth about Jesus, and the foundation of all truth. If we
cannot or do not believe this basic truth, we will not have enough faith to
trust our eternal destiny to him. That is why John wrote this Gospel, to build
faith and confidence in Jesus Christ so that we may believe that he truly was
and is the Son of God. John
20:30-31 And truly Jesus did many other signs in the
presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written that you may believe
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life
in His name.
Was
the Word; The “word” meaning
scripture; God given messages through the Prophets; Gods Laws; a standard of
Holiness. The Bible is God’s Words; Jesus is God; the Word is Jesus. John 1:14 And the
Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of
the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. The Bible is an eternal survival
guide to obtain Heaven for eternity. Through Jesus is the only way to the
Father!
What are your thoughts
when someone says the Bible is a bunch of garbage, yet they claim to be a
Christian? What is their faith in, dogma of a religion? What do they actually
believe in for salvation heritage, rules, and rituals of a religion? If people
say the Bible is a bunch of garbage then their faith isn’t in Jesus because the
Word is Jesus. In fact they are calling Jesus a liar. A person with this
attitude toward the Word is practicing false security for salvation and unless
they repent and accept Jesus they will not obtain Heaven. These people are
being led away from God through false teachings that are not in the Bible. I
challenge you to analyze what you believe in, what you were taught as a young
child, and young adult. Is your beliefs upheld by the Word of God or the words
of a religion?
And
the Word was with God; This
expression denotes friendship or intimacy. John affirms that Jesus was “with
God” in the beginning before the world was made. It implies that Jesus was
partaker of the divine glory; that he was blessed and happy with God. It proves
that he was intimately united with the Father, so as to partake of His glory
and to be appropriately called by the name God. He has himself explained it in John 17:5 And now, O Father,
glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before
the world was.
Also in John 1:18 No one has seen God at any time. The only
begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him. One last
claim by Jesus that he is God the Son, is stated in John 3:13 No one has ascended to
heaven but He who came down from heaven, that
is, the Son of Man who is in heaven.
And the Word was God; Above it states, “Word became flesh and dwelt among us”
this tells us that
when Jesus walked this earth He was God and man. He didn’t leave His divinity
in Heaven when He came to earth. He was both God and man when he dwelt among
us. Some say Jesus was like God, which isn’t what John is saying here. He is
God from eternity past to eternity future.
2
He was in
the beginning with God.
This
verse is still referring to Jesus as “He” and being with God during all of
eternity past or since the beginning whenever that was. The Trinity has existed
forever. The Trinity is something that many people can’t comprehend therefore
don’t believe in it. The “Father” is “God” but not a first God. The “Son” is God, but not a “second God.” The “Holy Spirit” is “God,”
but not a “third God.” There is only
one God, but manifested in three Persons, God the Father, God the Son, and God
the Holy Spirit.
As
God, They had no beginning and have no ending. As God, They are uncaused,
unformed, and unmade. As God, They always were and always shall be. As God,
They are self-sufficient, and have need of nothing.
One
can think of the Trinity like the head of a business firm. You have a
President, Vice President, and head Accountant. All three have the same plan for
the people that work for them to achieve the goals of a plan, but each person
has a different function to monitor.
God
has a plan, eternal life through salvation. God calls or draws an individual to
Himself, The Holy Spirit convicts or places guilt upon an individual of wrong
doing in an attempt to get them to repent of their lifestyle, and Jesus
forgives an individual and makes them part of God the Fathers family. The
Trinity is one mind with three functions/persons, which is a spiritual thing
that we humans find hard to comprehend, but all we need to do is believe it is
true, because the Bible says it is true.
3 All things were made through Him, and without
Him nothing was made that was made.
All
things were made through Him; In
this phrase “Him” is referring to the Word, Jesus, Son of God, God the Son. This
phrase affirms that “creation” was made by “the Word,” or the Son of God. In Genesis 1:1, it is said that the Being who
created the heavens and the earth was God. In Psalm 102:25-28, this work is credited to Yahweh. The
“Word,” or the Son of God, is therefore appropriately called “God.” The work of
“creation” is uniformly ascribed in the Scriptures to the Second Person of the
Trinity. See Colossians
1:16 For by Him all things were
created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible,
whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were
created through Him and for Him. Hebrews 1:2
has in these last days spoken to us by His
Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the
worlds; Hebrews 1:10 And: "YOU, LORD, IN
THE BEGINNING LAID THE FOUNDATION OF THE EARTH, AND THE HEAVENS ARE THE WORK OF
YOUR HANDS. By this it is
meant that Jesus was the agent by which the universe was made. There is no
higher proof of omnipotence than the work of creation; and, therefore, God
often appeals to that work to prove that he is the true God, in opposition to
idols. The Being, therefore, that “created” all things must be divine; and,
since this work is ascribed to Jesus Christ, and as it is uniformly in the
Scriptures declared to be the work of God, Jesus Christ is therefore equal with
the Father.
And without Him nothing was made that
was made; This
statement is a strong affirmation of the first part of this verse that Jesus
made creation and that He is God and not just man. In this way, he confirms
what he said in the first verse that He is God. Christ was not merely called
God, but he did the works of God, and therefore the name is used in its proper
sense as implying supreme divinity.
Remember
that you exist only because God created you, and you have special gifts only
because God gave them to you. With God you are something valuable and unique;
apart from God you are nothing, and if you try to live without him, you will be
abandoning the purpose for which you were made because you were made by God for
God. Colossians 1:16
4 In Him was
life, and the life was the light of men.
In
Him was life; This
phrase is referring to Jesus. It is through Jesus that we have physical life
and spiritual life. We are physically born and alive today because God wills
it. He put breath in us, Genesis
2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. Out of love, God gave us physical
life! So with this statement I have this question for you. Because of the love
God had for us we were created and given physical life, and because of love,
our human parents made it possible for us to be born of the flesh. We are here
because of God’s love and our parents love, so why do people use God’s name as
an adjective to express themselves in normal conversations and not their parent
names? Using God’s name other than in pray and worship is blasphemous isn’t it?
Exodus 20:7 "You shall not take the name of the LORD
your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain. Something to ponder and ask yourself
if you love God! A true Born Again Christian will not use God’s name in vain
because the Holy Spirit within the person will convict the individual so bad,
the person will know they have done wrong and go to Jesus and repent of their
speech. This is one of many indications of being saved.
Jesus not only gave us
physical life He can give us spiritual life. He is the “new creation”; He can
renovate our sinful life into a new life of light. He can deliver us from that
inherited sin nature that we were born with. You can think of it in terms of
our human birth as our first creation and a spiritual birth as a new creation.
Jesus is the source of life here and now and for eternity! This is why John
references that Jesus is the source of “life” in his writings. Ephesians
2:1; John 5:26; John 6:33; John
11:25; 1John 1:1-2; 1John 5:11; Acts
3:15; Colossians 3:4
And the life was the light of men; The “life” is referring to Jesus.
Jesus is our light, He brought light into this world when He died and rose from
the dead. Jesus is the second Adam that has restored the light that the first
Adam failed to hang onto. Mankind is born dying as is all of creation because
of the fall of Adam. Before the fall Jesus was the light of mankind meaning
there was no other life or light. Jesus always was, is, and will be for eternity.
He is our life source and with the fall of Adam we fell into darkness. The
“light” was lost when Adam forfeited eternal life for worldly wisdom,
knowledge, good, and evil, and then God automatically set forth to restore the
“life” by bringing forth His Son Jesus as man; the Light of the World; the
second Adam.
The
Fall was of such magnitude that there is no way man can fully comprehend its
scope. He cannot tell how far he has fallen, because he has no idea of God’s original
state. He is lost because he cannot compare his life to what God intended our
life to be like without sin, therefore we compare our life to the lifestyle of
our friends, neighbors, relatives, etc. and call ourselves good people. Good
meaning mans standards and not God’s Law. Man knows that something is wrong,
but due to having no “Light,” he does
not know exactly what it is. He continues to think it can be corrected by
education, money, or various different philosophies. Therefore, he chooses
modern psychology, even though it does not work and he knows it does not work. He
thinks he is only slightly separated from God, and can be quickly changed, so
he talks about the “psychology of life,” which is man’s answer to man’s
dilemma, or “the strength from within,” as if he can solve his own problems. Despite
the fact of thousands of years trying, he can’t do.
5 And the
light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
And the light shines in the darkness; The light of Jesus can never be
extinguished by darkness of evil. Jesus defeated Satan’s darkness when He rose
from the dead. Jesus Christ is the Creator of life, and His life brings light
to mankind. In His light, we see ourselves as we really are, sinners in need of
a Savior. When we follow Jesus, the true Light, we can avoid walking blindly
and falling into sin. He lights our path and removes the darkness of sin from
our lives.
Darkness
in the Bible, commonly denotes ignorance, guilt, or misery. See Isaiah
9:1-2; Acts 26:18; Ephesians 5:8, Ephesians
5:11; Romans 13:12. Here it refers to a wicked and
ignorant people. When it is said that “the light shines in darkness,” it is
meant that the Lord Jesus came to teach an ignorant, benighted, (In a state of
pitiful or contemptible intellectual or moral ignorance; Being overtaken by
Satan’s wickedness.) and wicked world. This has always been the case. It was so
when He sent His prophets in the OT; it was so during Jesus ministry; and it
has been so in every age since. God’s efforts to enlighten and save mankind is
like a few beams of sunlight shining through the clouds on a cloudy day. Only a
few rays pierce through the clouds (Only a remnant get saved.), yet the great
mass of clouds is still impenetrable.
And the darkness did not comprehend it;
The darkness here
denotes unsaved individuals. As stated earlier it is difficult for an unsaved
person to comprehend the Gospel because they judge themselves against other
people. They can’t comprehend, meaning understand, what life would be like
without sin on this earth, therefore they continue in their sinful lifestyle
because they deem themselves better than John and Jane Doe.
Just
like the beams of sun not capable of penetrating the clouds, the heart of mankind
can’t be penetrated by the Gospel because they are so ignorant, so guilty, so
debased, that they did not appreciate the value of Jesus instructions. They
despised and rejected Him because of the sin nature that resides in them that
promotes arrogance, pride, and having all the answers to all problems, and it
is still that way today!
The
great mass of mankind, sunk in sin, will not receive His teachings, and be
enlightened and saved by Jesus. Sin always blinds the mind to the beauty and Excellency
of our Lord Jesus. It indisposes the mind to receive His instructions, just as
“darkness” has no similarity as “light;” when the one exists, the other must be
displaced.
Do you ever feel that your life is too
complex for God to understand? Remember, God created the entire universe, and
nothing is too difficult for him. God created you; he is alive today, and his love
is bigger than any problem you may face. Repent and let Jesus lead your life.
Colossians
1:16 For
by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth,
visible
and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers.
All things were created through Him and for Him.
Romans
3:23 for
all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Romans
6:23 For
the wages of sin is death, but
the gift of God is eternal life
in Christ Jesus our Lord.
John 3:3
Jesus answered and said to him, Most assuredly, I say
to you,
unless one
is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."
The
Lighthouse Full Gospel Church
Sinners Prayer; Pray this, and if you
believe it with your heart, Jesus will save you!
“Lord
Jesus I know I am a sinner. I confess my
sins to you; I am sorry for my sins; I repent (Meaning, desiring to turn from a
sinful lifestyle.) of all my sins, and I am asking for your forgiveness. I believe that only you can forgive sin. I commit my life to you and ask you to come
into my heart, direct, and take charge of my life. I believe that you died to set me free from
my sinful lifestyle and you rose from the dead to give me eternal life, and
right now you are seated at the Right Hand of God Almighty. I believe you are
the Son of God; the only Way, the only Truth, the only Life, and my
Savior.” I believe this and have faith
you will make a new person out of me, by sending the Holy Spirit to dwell in my
heart and lead me in a new life. In Jesus name I pray Amen.”
(John 3:16,17; Romans
3:23; 6:23; 5:8; 10:9-13; Ephesians
2:8-10; 1 John 5:11-14; 1:6-10)
(Sin: Rom. 1:22-32; Gal. 5:19-21; Eph.
5:3-7)
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