Good Morning All,
John 20:30; “but these are written so that you
may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you
may have life in his name.”
People don’t write letters like they used
to. This is really unfortunate for many
reasons. One reason is that we are
losing our ability to express ourselves with the written language. Now we twit on twitter and use ridiculous
shorthand words which are ruining our language.
We no longer take the time to craft a letter which conveys our deepest
thoughts and feelings to be shared with someone whom we love or trust. It could even take the form of a legal
document where the writer is relaying the events which he is witnessing.
The second reason that it is a sad event is
that personal letters and diaries are among the best resources for historians
to determine what life was like. Oh,
there are many official documents but those are written by people who have a
stake in what others believe. The king
will always want his subjects to hear how brave and wise he is. Yet it is in the personal letters and diaries
that we find the true thoughts of people at the time. An example is “The Private Diary of Dr.
Samuel Pepys.” This is one of the
primary sources about 17th century England. He gives firsthand account of the Great
Plague of London and the Great Fire of London.
Much of our knowledge of the Revolutionary War and the Civil War comes
from the letters that soldiers wrote home to their loved ones.
It was even common for some of the great
writers in the 19th century to tell the readers what the storyline
of the novel. “It was the best of times;
it was the worst of times.” Or “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a
single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."
Yet today we don’t often write so we often
do not give a clear explanation of what we are trying to communicate. In our feeble attempts we fail. That is not the case in our verse for today.
The Apostle John is very specific about why
he wrote his Gospel and epistles. The
Holy Spirit is telling us the whole purpose, not only of John’s Gospel, but the
entire Bible. Why are we told some
things but not others? Why are there
apparent “blanks” in Scriptures? Why don’t
we hear about Jesus between the ages of 13 and 30? What about all the people who appear briefly
in the narratives but then just as quickly disappear? The answer to these questions is in our verse
“these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of
God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
The Bible is God’s way of revealing to us
how we are saved. It is not designed to
be the entire historical compendium; rather it contains the information about
our salvation. From Adam and Eve and the
fall into sin through Jesus’ glorious return in the Revelation of John, the
central message is the Gospel of Jesus.
As we look at each book of the Bible, we can see the Gospel of Jesus and
his atoning sacrifice. Sometimes it is
foreshadowed like with Abraham going to sacrifice Isaac (his only son) or flat
out prophesied, “he was wounded for our transgressions” but it always points to
our need for a Savior and who that Savior is.
God reveals this plan to us in the
Bible. There are many things about God
which are not revealed to us; things we accept by faith. Yet our salvation is clearly explained so
that we may believe and by believing have eternal life.
Dear Father, your grace
is wondrously poured out on us daily.
Without it we are lost. Give us
the power of your Spirit and the faith to hold onto our hope of salvation. In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.
God’s Peace,
Pastor Bret
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