Week 14 Day 1

The Daily Take 10

The Gospel of John

Week 14 Day 1

Introduction…As we studied earlier in the chapter, Nicodemus noted something powerfully unique about Jesus. He stated accurately that God the Father had sent Jesus, but initially he didn’t recognize the reality of Jesus being God in the flesh. John the Baptist, on the other hand, recognized and exalted Jesus as the Christ, God the Son, the Savior of the world and rightly pointed people to follow Jesus and look to Him for salvation.

Read John 3: 22-30 “After these things Jesus and his disciples came into the land of Judea and there He remained with them and baptized. Now John also was baptizing in Aenon near Salim, becasuse there was much water there. And they came and were baptized. For John had not yet been thrown into prison. Then there arose a dispute between some of John’s disciples and the Jews about purification. And they came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, He who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you have testified, behold, He is baptizing, and all are coming to Him!” John answered and said, “A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven. “you yourselves bear me witness, that I said, ‘I am not the Christ,’ but, ‘I have been sent before Him.’ He who has the bride is the bridegroom, but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegrooms voice. Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease.”

Bible Study

• John the Baptist portrayed servant leadership, as did Jesus. John honored Jesus and Jesus exalted God the Father.
  • A servant leader exhibits humilty in serving others and rejects fear and pride that surfaces when someone tries to hold onto position or power.
  • John’s disciples were concerned that more people were following Jesus than him and wanted John to do something about it.
  • The natural man would find it easy to feel hurt, abandoned and have their pride injured when anothers success surpasses yours.
• John’s reaction, showed the Godly man that he was. John’s reaction taught his disciples and all of us today some lessons to remember.
  • There is great value in playing a subordinate role. John was prepared for stepping down and fulfilled his calling without resentment. John understood that any role or task done for God is necessarily great.
  • No person can receive more than God gave them. There is no good or right reason for jealousy. Accepting God’s blessing and calling with thanksgiving is the right way to live. “Godliness with contentment is great gain.” 1 Timothy 6:6
  • There is great merit in bringing people to Christ. Leading someone to Christ is a great honor, but after the connection is made, love flows from God directly to the person. We are the Church and Christ is the bridegoom. That is the relationship that matters. See Ephesians 5: 25-27.

Application

• E. Stanley Jones said, “The calling of a Christian is not to do extraordinary things, but to do ordinary things in an extraordinary way.”

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Week 14 Day 2

The Daily Take 10

The Gospel of John

Week 14 Day 2

Introduction…“On your feet now-applaud God! Bring a gift of laughter, sing yourselves into His presence. Know this: God is God…He made us; we didn’t make him. We’re his people…enter with the password: thank you! Make yourselves at home, talking praise. Thank him. Worship him. For God is sheer beauty, all-generous in love, loyal always and ever.” Psalms 100 The Message Bible

Read John 3:31-36 “He who comes from above is above all. He who is of the earth is earthly and speaks of the earth. He who comes from heaven is above all. And what He has seen and heard, that He testifies, and no one receives His testimony. He who has received His testimony has certified that God is true. For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God does not give the Spirit by measure. The Father loves the Son and has given all t hings into His hand. He who believes in the Son has everlasting life and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”

Bible Study

• If you want to know me ask my family because they live with me. If you want to know God, hear and listen to Jesus, for it is the very voice of God.
• Only Jesus has been with the Father and the Bible says that He speaks with knowledge from above, from heaven, and from God.
• Be aware, know, understand, let it sink in and fully realize…
  • No one ever came to this world like Jesus. His prophesied virgin birth.
  • No one ever lived, spoke, or did the miracle works as did Jesus.
  • No one ever died for our sins, rose again and ascended into heaven like Jesus.
• Jesus was not just a good man, a prophet, or a teacher. He was with God, was and is God and He came to earth out of love for us, so that whoever believes (trusts, commits and lives for Him) would not be judged and condemned.
  • “For in him (Jesus) dwells the godhead bodily…” Colossians 2:9
• Truth is not merely a word or a philosophy. It is a person…God…and it goes forth to all people. “His truth endures to all generations.” Psalms 100:5
• The Holy Spirit was given to Jesus without measure, like no other person.
  • The Spirit reveals God’s truth to people.
  • The Spirit enables people to recognize and understand truth

• Everlasting life is not only a future hope for true believers, but a very present possession that gives us the love, peace and joy of God everyday we live in His Presence.

Application

• Read and reread the Gospels and get to know Jesus. Read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and note the person of Jesus.

“Jesus Calling” by Sarah Young, page 3 says:

“Relax in my Healing Presence. As you spend time with Me, your thoughts tend to jump ahead to today’s plans and problems. Bring your mind back to Me for refreshment and renewal. Let the Light of My Presence soak into you as you focus your thoughts on Me.  This sacrifice of time together. Resist the clamor of tasks waiting to be done. You have chosen the better and it will not be taken away from you.”

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Week 14 Day 3

The Daily Take 10

The Gospel of John

Week 14 Day 3

Introduction…We don’t know her name. The Jews wouldn’t speak with her. She was a snubbed gender and a part of a despised race of half breeds in Samaria. Yet because Jesus was God in the flesh and so loved the world, this was an opportunity to reach her with God’s truth and love. Soon the entire city of Sychar would be greatly affected with Jesus’ amazing love, compelling message and miraculous works.
Read John 4: 1-9 “Therefore when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John (though Jesus himself did not baptize, but His disciples), He left Judea and departed again unto Galilee. But He needed to go through Samaria. So He came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about midday. There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Then the woman said to Him, “How is it that you, being a Jew, ask a drink from me a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.

Bible Study

• John the Baptist and the disciples of Jesus baptized believers in water.
  • Water baptism is a picture of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus that believers enter into. It is an act of spiritual consecration to God
  • The Greek word baptizo or to baptize literally means to immerse.
  • Examples of the use of this word are: cloth is submerged/baptized into a vat of dye to change its color.
  • Water baptism is an ordinance of the Church because Jesus endorsed it.
    • Matthew 3:15 Jesus says regarding his own baptism “Permit it to be for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”
    • Matthew 28:18-20 is the Great Commission given by Jesus which says “go and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”
  • Being born again requires the believers’ self-determined act of confession, repentance, and receiving Jesus Christ as Savior. Water baptism should also be a self-determined act of the new believer. See Acts 8:34-40 and read the account of the salvation and baptism of the Ethiopian.
• Jesus was noted to be the one who would baptize believers in the Holy Spirit, which indwells all believers at salvation
  • Matthew 3: 11 John the Baptist explained, “I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who coming after me (referring to Jesus) is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

• A little background:
  • Israel/Canaan land was 120 miles long north to south.
  • Samaria was in the middle of Israel
  • To get from southern Israel/Judea to northern Israel/Galilee one had to go outside Israel and around Samaria or go through it.

• The Jews would not go into Samaria due to their hatred for these people, but Jesus walked into Samaria intentionally, thus showing God’s love for ‘the world’.

• Jesus in speaking to this woman at the well broke down barriers and expressed the universality of God’s love for all people, everywhere and at all times.
  • Jesus broke the barrier of orthodoxy and Jewish custom for a man, much more a Rabbi speaking to a woman in public, which they never did. Jesus saw the equality of women with men and honored both.
  • Jesus broke the barrier of nationality, as a Jew, spoke to a Samaritan, a despised group hated by the Jews and seen as inferior.
  • Jesus broke the barrier of sin and as the Son of God spoke to this woman who was living immorally, He became a bridge of forgiveness and offered acceptance and new life in Christ.

Application

• God did not love in theory or on paper, but in reality.
• To whom can we show God’s love, acceptance and forgiveness?
• That is the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

Tags: Take 10

Week 14 Day 4

The Daily Take 10

The Gospel of John

Week 14 Day 4

Introduction…Have you ever led someone to Christ? Striking up a conversation is the beginning. Finding common ground, a common interest is next as familiarity and trust grows. Bringing the conversation around to God, expressing your experience with Him  and sharing your knowledge of God, what it means to you to be a disciple of Jesus follows. Sharing the powerful truth of the Word of God and God’s love for the world is of great value. In the process of sharing our faith and hopefully leading someone to Christ, our role is to plant the seed and water the seed by what we say and do. But it is God who draws a person to Himself and brings about the miraculous growth of the seed.

Read John 4: 10-15  “Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God and who it is who says to you, ‘give me a drink,’ you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water.’ The woman said to Him, ‘Sir, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where then do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob who gave us the well and drank from it himself as well as his sons and livestock? Jesus answered and said to her, ‘whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into eternal life.” The woman said to Him, ‘Sir give me this water that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”

Bible Study

• There is a thirst for God in each of us. Jesus spoke of living water from God which can only satisfy the soul of a person. See Psalms 42:1 “As the deer pants after the water brooks, so pants my soul after you, oh God.”
• Revelation 7:17 speaks of we who know God being led to drink from the springs of living water and then in Rev. 21:6 the promise is, “To the thirsty I will give water without price from the fountain of water of life.”
• The prophet Isaiah speaks for God when he says in 55:1, “Everyone that is thirsty, come and drink and he that has no money, come buy and eat…without money.
• The prophet Jeremiah in 2:13 sadly declares that the people had forsaken God who was the fountain of living water and instead had chosen their own broken water pots that could hold no water. What a travesty!
• Jesus’ claim to the woman was she would never thirst again. He could say this because, He the Messiah brings God to us and will rule and reign on earth at His 2^nd Coming:
  • Psalms 36:9 declares “With you oh God is the fountain of life.”
  • Revelation 22:1 says it is from the very throne of God that the river of life will flow.
• There are moments in life when we see clearly and it is then we can see that only eternity with God holds our greatest hope and there is a certainty that only Jesus can satisfy the thirst of our soul.

Application

• Someone has said, “There are certain truths which a person cannot accept. He or she must discover them for themselves.”
• Pray for the opportunity to share your faith with someone. God will open the door. You can only share what you have. It is God who will do the work of discovery within the person.

Tags: Take 10

Week 14 Day 5

The Daily Take 10

The Gospel of John

Week 14 Day 5

Introduction…There are times when we must and do face the truth. The woman at the well asks Jesus for convenience, free water that she will not have to work for, but Jesus brought her to her senses. The woman caught a glimpse of herself, a snapshot of her life and the person she was. When was the last time you had a reality check or saw life differently or saw yourself for who you are? Reading the Word of God, a message from a Pastor or sometimes a circumstance that comes up in life brings us to our senses.

Read John 4:15-26 “The woman said to Him, ‘Sir, give me this water that I may not thirst and so I will not have to come here to draw water.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband and come here.’ The woman answered, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said, ‘you have well said I have no husband, for you have had 5 husbands and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.’ The woman said to Him, ‘Sir I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshipped on this mountain and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Woman believe me the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem worship the Father. You worship what you do not known; we know what we worship for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming and now is when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.’ The woman said, ‘I know that Messiah is coming and when He comes, He will teach us all things.’ Jesus said, ‘I who speak to you am He.”

Bible Study

• Being born again, becoming a true believer, a Christian and an eventual disciple of Jesus Christ begins with a view and sense of sin, our sin.
• Before coming to God, we realize we aren’t making it and will not make it. We need something, someone, and it is only God who has the cure for our lives.
• Christianity and serving God is not about living in constant guilt, it is all about seeing our need and the answer of God’s love. We can live free and forgiven.
• Someone said that prophecy is criticism based upon hope. A prophet exposes the wrong with a person or nation, but also points to the way of escape and resolve.
• The Samaritans had a convenient religion that had some truth (we need to worship God), but like all religions of this world, they will not take you to God.
• The real question is who is the real and living God and where can I find God?
  • Zephaniah 2:11, the prophet explains that people could and would find God everywhere and worship Him wherever they are.
  • Malachi 1:11, the prophet declares that in every place pure offerings of worship can be made to God.
  • Jesus’ answer to the woman and to all of us is man made religion and efforts are ended. True worshippers, God seekers, would find God!
• False worship is…
  • Selective, choosing only what I want to know about God.
  • Ignorant based upon wrong information and inclinations lacking the truth. See 1 Peter 3:15
  • Superstitious, based upon fear and silly beliefs.
• True worship is based upon a real relationship with the Creator, True and Living God that reaches out to us in love and as a result of this revelation of love our response is worship to Him.  It is in return for His goodness, mercy and forgiveness toward us.
  • God is Spirit, therefore is not confined to places and times.
  • God is Spirit, therefore does not want or need gifts or sacrifices of dead animals, but rather lives that are dead to self and alive to God.
  • Romans 12:1-2 says it right. “…present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

Application

• God’s Word is a mirror, giving us clear revelation of God and ourselves.
• We cannot look at either God or ourselves for who we really are and walk away, forget what we saw and be unchanged.

“Jesus Calling” by Sarah Young:

• “I am creating something new in you: a bubbling spring of joy that spills over into others’ lives. Do not mistake this Joy for your own or try to take credit for it in any way. Instead, watch in delight as My Spirit flows through you to bless others. Let yourself become a reservoir of the Spirit’s fruit. Your part is to live close to Me, open to all that I am doing in you. Don’t try to control the streaming of My Spirit through you. Just keep focusing on Me as we walk through this day together. Enjoy My Presence, which permeates you with Love, Joy and Peace.”

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