More than 6 months ago (prior to taking on full-time work in childcare), I was engaged in not-frequent-enough personal study of Scripture.
The subsequent focus of a number of posts on this blog
- from January onwards -
was the 4th of the gospel accounts, as inspired by God & recorded by the apostle JOHN (son of Zebedee, brother of James). My quest was to find out the following:
* how to know God?
(principally in a relational sense, of experiencing Him)
&
* how to know God's will, desires, plans for His people; what He wants for them
(with us included, if we are Christians)
Back at the end of April this year, I had gotten up to some personal notes on chapter 17, but could not continue with the remaining chapters since the demands of my job kept me away from the Internet a lot more.
However, now that the pain in my feet has put an end to full-time work in the childcare industry (as of 8th November) .. it's full steam ahead!
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KNOWING (or experiencing) GOD
From reading JOHN 18 and 19, one deduces that
we can know/experience God by..
.. ..His choice to identify/show Himself to us
(as Jesus did in the garden, vv.4-8 of chapter 18)
.. ..accepting Him (God the Son) for precisely who He says He is
(i.e. Jesus acknowledges He is King, check out vv.29-38)
=> & also, this means responding to Him as He deserves
(not in the way the soldiers did, 19:2-3)
.. ..following Him
(though not at a distance, as Peter did in 18:15-18)
.. ..His speaking openly to the world
(& His words then being recorded for us to read from, e.g. vv.20-21 of ch.18)
.. ..LISTENING to His voice
- i.e. listening to all He said as recorded, and/or fulfilled, in Scripture for us
(e.g. 18:37; also inferred in v.9 and v.32)
=> & of course, listening to/believing in the testimony of those who saw Jesus' life & death (19:35 - also, they did see His resurrection, but that's in ch.20)
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KNOWING what GOD WILLS for His people
It seems that knowing what God's will is for His people is focused here on..
.. ..the salvation of His people through Jesus, who drinks the cup given Him
(the cup of God's wrath**, v.11 of ch.18
.. ..the importance of His WORD in revealing His will (v.9 in same chapter - a concern echoed also in v.32 and in 19:24 as well as 19:28-30 and 19:36-37
=> to indicate that His Word come to fulfillment in Jesus)
**
CUP?
This is a topic all its own - please comment if you require further explanation..
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Looking over related blog posts, there are certain things that just keep on repeating themselves from the preceding chapters of this gospel..!
Next up - the final notes on the final 2 chapters (twentieth and twenty-first).
L/T.
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