Week 19 Day 1

The Daily Take 10

The Gospel of John

Week 19 Day 1

Introduction…The feasts or festivals that God instructed Moses to institute among the people were purposed to remind the people of God about His delivering them from slavery, calling them a people, and His faithful Presence in their lives throughout history. This festival of Tabernacles or of the Lord, which was the 3^rd of the events the Jews celebrated each year had great significance historically as the greatest festival among the Jews. Leviticus 23:40-43 tells its purpose, “that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt.”

Read John 7: 37-44 “On the last, the great day of the festival, Jesus stood and cried: ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. As the Scripture says: He who believes in me, rivers of living water shall flow from his belly.’ It was about the Spirit whom those who believed in him were to receive that he said this. For as yet there was no Spirit because Jesus was not yet glorified. When they heard these words some of the crowd said: ‘This is really the promised Prophet.’ Others said: ‘this is the Anoited One of God.’ But some said: ‘Surely the Anointed One of God does not come from Galilee? Does the Scripture not say that the Anointed One of God is a descendant of David and that he is come from Bethlehem, the village where David used to live?’ So there was a division of opinion in the crowd because of him. Some of them would have liked to arrest him, but none laid hands on him.”

Bible Study

• The Feast included a meaningful ceremony where significant activities took place:
  • The people recited Isaiah 12:3 “With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.”
  • Then water from a gold picture was poured out as an offering to God.
  • While this was being done, The Hallel, Psalms 113-118 was sung to the accompaniment of flutes.
  • The worshippers shouted and waved palms toward the altar in thanksgiving to God, when they came to words within those Psalms, “give thanks to the Lord” and “O work now then salvation”.
• At this dramatic moment of giving thanks to God and speaking of drinking from the provided waters of salvation from God, Jesus cries out with the truth and fulfillment of God’s promise to His people…
  • For all who thirst for God and His salvation, let that person come to Jesus, the one sent for our salvation. That was the very reason Jesus was there!
  • When this work of salvation is done in us, now from out of our lives would flow the hope, the love and the life of Jesus…not only enough for us, but for those we touch with the light and life of Jesus.
• Jesus made it clear that He was that Prophet promised and prophesied to come after Moses in Deuteronomy 18:15 “the Lord, your God will raise up unto you a Prophet from the midst of you, of your brethren, like me; unto him shall you hearken.”
• Jesus made it clear that the Holy Spirit would come and indwell and empower true believers from out of their innermost being, the Spirit would flow in us and out of us, to the lost world in which we live.

Application

• When Jesus, God the Son, ascended and left this world to sit (signifying His work is done) on the right hand of the Father, the Father sent the Holy Spirit to seal our salvation and be in and with us, as another Comforter called alongside us to help. Jesus was limited by time and space, but God the Holy Spirit is omnipresent. He is with us 24/7.

Tags: Take 10

Week 19 Day 2

The Daily Take 10

The Gospel of John

Week 19 Day 2

Introduction…No one person or denomination has the corner on God. God can not be put in a neat box, especially one we created for Him. He is sovereign, bigger than our thoughts and will do beyond our imaginations. Our understanding of God cannot divide us from others who have a different view or interpretation of God’s Word. There is so much that should unite us and we must walk humbly before Him while loving others who don’t quite know what we know, especially since we do not know it all.

Read John 7:45-52 “So the officers came to the chief priests and the Pharisees. They said to them: ‘Why did you not bring him here?’ The attendants answered: ‘Never did a man speak as he speaks.’ So the Pharisees answered: ‘Surely you too have not been led astray? Has anyone from the authorities believed in him? Or anyone from the Pharisees? They have not, but the mob which is ignorant of the law and which is accursed believes in him!’ Nicodemus (the man who came to him before) said to them, for he was one of them: ‘Surely our law does not condemn a man unless it first hears a statement of the case from him and has first hand information about what he is doing?’ The answered him: ‘Surely you too are not from Galilee? Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee.”

Bible Study

• No one ever spoke like Jesus. He was God speaking. Don’t you think it would get your attention? It stunned the officers so much, they could not arrest Him.
• The snobbery of the religious leaders who wanted to control the people and maintain their powerful position caused them to actually and tragically miss the God they were representing even though He was right in front of them. Do you know Him?
  • See Matthew 7:21, “Not everyone that says Lord, Lord shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that does the will of the Father…”
  • 1 Samuel 16:7 and 2 Corinthians 10:7 teaches, “Man looks on the outward appearance but God looks upon the heart.”
• Jesus was not up to their standard or level. Jesus was a Servant Leader. They were all about title, prestige, position and pedigree.
• All throughout Scripture, God used the humble servant and not the obvious, apparent, strong leader…Why?
  • God has chosen the foolish, simple and weak things to confound the wise so that no person can glory, but God.
  • Moses stammered and could not speak without his brother Aaron speaking for him, yet God used him powerfully to lead His people
  • Gideon was hiding and the least in his family and God called him a mighty man of valor and used him mightily.
  • David was the young shepherd boy who God selected as leader and King
  • 1 Corinthians 1:26-31 tells us, “your calling brethren, how not many wise…not many mighty…not many noble are called, but God has chosen the foolish…and weak things to confound the things that are mighty…”
• Jesus came representing the heart of God, who loved the world, not just the upper crust, but especially those who have need, no hope and want God. To God we are truly all equally loved. After all we are all sinners saved by His grace.
  • Serving God is not about position or prestige, “Pure religion and undefiled before God… is visiting the fatherless and widows and keeping ourselves unspotted from world.” James 1:27

Application

• We cannot follow the crowd. The world is lost and going astray. That is why Jesus still calls us, the true believers, His disciples, to follow Him. We need to listen more to Him and less to our doubts. Sometimes it is a lonely road, but He will never leave or forsake us. To whom else can we go? Only Jesus has the words of life.

Tags: Take 10

Week 19 Day 3

The Daily Take 10

The Gospel of John

Week 19 Day 3

Introduction…Christianity has gotten a ‘bad rap’ and a wrong criticism. Sigmund Freud, a famous psychologist incorrectly declared Christianity promotes and has brought on the feeling of guilt among people. However, if we follow the teachings of Jesus, we see the heart of God is not about condemnation but love and forgiveness. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus – there is right from wrong and truth is not relative to the situation or person. Only God can and He does declare these absolutes. In fact He offers us His statutes, commandments, ordinances and precepts for our own good and so we might enjoy life. See Psalms 119

Read John 7:53-8:11 “And each of them went ot his own house, but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning he was again in the Temple precincts and all the people came to him. He sat down and went on teaching them. The scribes and Pharisees brought a woman arrested for adultery. They set her in the midst and said to him: ‘Teacher, this woman was arrested as she was committing adultery, in the very act. In the law Moses, it commanded us to stone women like this. What do you say about her? They were testing him when they said this so that they might have some ground on which to accuse him. Jesus stooped down and wrote with his finger on the ground. When they went on asking their question, he straightened himself and said to them: ‘let the man among you who is without sin be the first to cast a stone at her.’ And again he bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. One by one those who had heard what he said went out, beginning from the eldest down to the youngest. So Jesus was left alone and the woman was still there in the midst. Jesus straightened himself and said to her: ‘Woman where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ She said: ‘no one sir.’ Jesus said: ‘I am not going to pass judgment on you either. God and from now on, sin no more.”

Bible Study

• Jesus continued His good work of speaking for God. Teaching not what man might say or compare thoughts with the minds of His day, but Jesus spoke the heart of God to a lost world.
• Today we cherish His words and are so attracted to the rightness of His life above all others we consider WWJD (what would Jesus do) as our best guide for living.
• The religious leaders did not believe in Jesus, nor that He was the Messiah. They didn’t open their hearts to Him or His teachings because they saw that belief in Jesus as the Anointed One, that was a growing trend with many people, as a threat to their established power, position and wealth.
• Religion and establishment see Jesus as competition. They leaders in Jesus’ day sought to discredit Him, tarnish His reputation and trap Him legally.
• Man fighting against God is mere foolishness. Jesus’ wisdom against the evil plots of the wicked was no match.
• What was Jesus writing in the sand…other sins that each of the accusers committed? The point was well taken. We should not and cannot judge sins we too have sinned. Matthew 7:1 “Judge not that you be not judged by God.”
• The scene of all others leaving but Jesus and the woman caught in adultery has been called ‘great misery and great pity’, but there we see the heart of God.
• God is not about condemnation. See John 3:16-17. God is about providing for us forgiveness for our sin and saying to us as Jesus did the woman…”go and make a new start in your life and don’t get trapped in sin.”

Application

• Living by the letter of the law is so debilitating and suffocating. 2 Corinthians 3:6 says, “the letter of the law kills, but the Spirit gives life.”
• A preacher named George Whitefield, who saw a criminal on the way to the gallows, said that now famous quote, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.”
• I love the revelation of David in the Psalms 103:8-12 and make it my prayer,
  • “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy. He will not always chide, neither will he keep his anger forever. He has not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward them that fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” Amen!

Tags: Take 10

Week 19 Day 4

The Daily Take 10

The Gospel of John

Week 19 Day 4

Introduction…Jesus bluntly told the religious leaders that they had no real knowledge of God. Imagine. Religious leaders without God. What a travesty! What a sham! But it is not uncommon even today when in the name of religion, people are killing others and call evil good and good evil. The judgment of Jesus and the Father is perfect. Stay tuned.

Read John 8:12-20 “So Jesus again continued to speak to them. ‘I am the Light of the World,’ he said. ‘He that follows me will not walk in darkness, but he will have the light of life.’ So the Pharisees said to him: ‘You are bearing witness of yourself. Your witness is not true.’ Jesus answered: ‘Even if I do bear witness about myself, my witness is true because I know where I came from and where I am going to. You form your judgments on purely human grounds. I do not judge anyone. But if I do form a judgment, my judgment is true because I am not alone in my judgment, but I and the Father who sent me join in such a judgment. It stands written in your law that the witness of 2 persons is to be accepted as true. It is I who witness about myself and the Father who sent me also witnesses about me.’ They said to him: ‘where is your Father? ‘ Jesus answered: ‘you neither know me nor my Father. If you had known me you would know my Father too.’ He spoke these words in the treasury while he was teaching in the Temple precints and no one laid violent hands upon him because his hour had not yet come.”

Bible Study

• Jesus was teaching in the Temple in Jerusalem where many people came daily to worship, pay their tithes and offerings and it is there most likely with the lighting of the 4 great candelabras, a ceremony called The Illumination of the Temple, that He makes the true claim that He is the Light of the World.
• In other words, the lighting ceremony is impressive and the pomp and circumstance is a ‘grabber’, but it only lasts a while. What you see is religion and form, but what you hear and see in me has the power to save and is lasting.
• Jesus makes clear that He is the light come from God to mankind and that He gives light, or life to those who follow Him.
• Jesus speaks in this passage about following Him. The word in Greek, akolouthien has deep meaning:
  • This word depicts a soldier following his officer. Christ is our commander in life.
  • This word depicts a slave accompanying his master. Wherever the master goes the servant attends and springs into action to serve his master.
  • This word is used when accepting wise counsel. Following the wise counsel of our Lord and Counselor, Prince of Peace.
  • This word is used when giving obedience to the governing laws. Abiding by the laws of God and His Kingdom.
  • This word is used when following a teacher’s thought process or training. The words go deep and penetrate the thinking and flow into action.

• Jesus made a bold claim to be the Light of the World, since that describes God.
  • Psalms 27:1 says, “The Lord is my light.”
  • Isaiah 60:19 says, “The Lord will be your everlasting light.”
  • Job 29:3 says, “By His light I walked through darkness.”
  • Micah 7:8 says, “When I sit in darkness the Lord will be a light to me.”
• Living in the Light of His Presence makes us smarter and wiser in life than we really are or would ever be on our own. “Your Word is a lamp unto my feet and light unto my path.” Psalms 119:105

Application

• “Jesus Calling” by Sarah Young, page 41

“I am above all things: your problems, your pain and the swirling events in this ever changing world. When you behold My Face, you rise above circumstances and rest with Me in heavenly realms. This is the way of Peace, living in the Light of My Presence. I guarantee that you will always have problems in this life, but they must not become your focus. When you feel yourself sinking in the sea of circumstances, say “Help me Jesus!” and I will draw you back to Me. If you have to say that thousands of times daily, don’t be discouraged. I know your weakness and I meet you in that very place.”

Tags: Take 10

Week 19 Day 5

The Daily Take 10

The Gospel of John

Week 19 Day 5

Introduction…when it nears the end of a game, the announcers call it crunch time. It is when it’s all on the line and if you are going to win, you must step up. In our Bible Study today, Jesus lays it all out. Jesus told the crowd listening to Him that time was short and He would be leaving. In essence He said, you better make your decision about me now or never. The problem with this world and mankind is sin. Jesus declared that He was God’s answer and remedy. And for those who rejected Him, God’s plan based upon His great love for mankind is…judgment is coming.

Read John 8:21-30 “So he said to them again: ‘I am going away and you will search for me and you will die in your sin. You cannot come where I am going.’ So the Jews said: ‘Surely he is not going to kill himself because he is saying: you cannot come where I am going?’ He said to them: ‘you are from below, but I am from above. You belong to this world, but I do not belong to this world. I said to you that you will die in your sins. For if you will not believe that I am who I am, you will die in your sins.’ They said to him: ‘who are you?’ Jesus said to them: ‘Anything I am saying to you is only the beginning. I have many things to say about you and many judgments to deliver on you, but he who sent me is true and I speak to the world what I have heard from him.’ They did not know that it was about the Father that he was speaking to them. So Jesus said to them: ‘When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am who I am and that I do nothing on my own authority, but that I speak these things as the Father has taught me. And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, because I always do the things that are pleasing to him.’ As he said these things, many believed in him.”

Bible Study

• What else could Jesus continue to do but tell the truth to Pharisees with the crowd listening to every word.
• It became increasingly obvious that Jesus was different, sent from God and the Messiah, Savior that had come to save mankind from their sin.
• The religious leaders were blind to the truth…like much of the world today. Why?
  • Satan, the god of this world, has blinded them to the truth of the gospel. See 1 Corinthians 4:4, ‘the god of this age has blinded the minds of them.’
  • Greed, power and wealth were more important than God, truth, and eternal life. Live for today. Tomorrow may never come.
• Major statements within this passage of Scripture…
  • “I am going away”. Jesus knew His time was short and His purpose. He came to die that we might be reconciled to God. He saw mankind from Adam and Eve, those in His day and those of us today…all who need a Savior. What can wash away our sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
  • “You will search for me”. Life has its way of distilling the froth and fun away…and when we come to our senses, our moments of realizing the truth and truly important things of life, we will cry out to God, have mercy
  • “You will die in your sin”. Jesus warned, if they continued to refuse Him, they would die in their sins. Ezekiel 3:18, 18:18. Sin involves ‘missing the mark or target in life’ and ‘separation from God’.
  • “You cannot come where I am going”. Jesus, the Lamb of God, determined to be slain, before the foundations of the universe (Revelation 13:8), knew He would come to earth, die to remove sin, rise again and ascend into heaven with the Father. Our Blessed Hope is to be with Him in Heaven someday. Jesus promises this future to those who receive Christ.

Application

• When Adam and Eve sinned, their instinct was to hide from God. See Genesis 3:8-10. The person who dies in sin, actually dies in opposition to God and His will for us. The man or woman who accepts Christ already walks with God and death only opens the doorway to a closer walk with Him. To refuse Christ is to remain a stranger and infidel to God. To accept Christ is to become a friend of God.
• What a friend we have in Jesus!

Tags: Take 10