Over the last week I decided to begin reading the New
Testament from beginning to the end, I mean after all, like so many others I have a
lot more time on my hand than I normally would, so why not. So I began on Monday with the book of Matthew
and today I finished with the book of John.
So 6 days and I have managed to get through 4 books…of course I could have
read more and I actually thought I should have until this morning as I sat in
the corner of my little prayer closet and began to finish up the book of John. I
just felt like I needed to get in my prayer closet to read this morning,
something I had yet to do while I started reading, but somehow it felt right…actually
I felt I was being drawn to do so, so I did. As I read I felt the Word come to life as I never have before.
I picked up where I left off last night in John 13 with Jesus
washing the Disciples feet. I could feel
it, I could smell the air, my heart, my mind, and my soul was completing into
every word I was reading…it was like I was there…like I was momentarily
transported to that time, like I wasn’t even reading. I felt like I was in the middle of the story
witnessing what was taking place and I was seeing things and receiving things
that I had never gotten before. I found
myself nodding my head in agreement with Jesus as He was talking with His
Disciples and I felt my heart throbbing when they didn’t understand when He
tried to explain to them what was about to happen.
So many things started coming together for me from the
Gospels that I had read over the last week, but I also found myself thinking,
what did I miss, should I read them all again before I continue on. After all, this morning was more powerful
than any Bible reading that I had ever experienced. Jesus continued with all the lessons He had
been teaching His Disciples and us during His time on earth. There are a few lessons that that I found to be the
prominent ones throughout the four Gospels!
We are to love God with everything we have in us…I mean everything…He
tells us this in so many different ways, but He is also particularly explicit
with this command and goes on to say that we are to love the Lord God with all
our heart, with all our soul and with all our mind! This is in all the Gospels and there is no
questioning or debating this command! He
also tells us that we are to love each other…He tells us this in a variety of
parables and shows us in how He, Himself, treats every person He comes in
contact with, but in this too, He is very explicit with and states that this is
the second of the greatest commandments…to love your neighbor as yourself! (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:30-31; Luke 10:27)
So what have I gathered from this?
LOVE!!!!! We know that God is
Love and Jesus tells us the greatest commandment is to love Him and then to
love others! So love, just love!
The next thing that stood out to me throughout the Gospels
is SERVE! Again, Jesus spoke many
parables about servanthood, but He also showed how to serve in the way He
served others, the way He treated everyone.
No matter who they were, where they were from, what they had, what they didn’t
have, my Jesus served them…He treated them like they were the most important
person in the world to Him! He valued
them like they had never been valued before!
It is what He did when He washed the Disciples feet, He was showing them
how much he loved and valued them, but He was also teaching them that they were
to do the same! That hit me…am I washing
people’s feet? Sometimes we as humans
run things through our mind and make excuses to make ourselves feel like we are
because we do all this “stuff” for Jesus, but many times that stuff is what we
choose to do or what we want to do and it’s all clean and pretty! Sometimes, many times, what Jesus asks us to
do is not what we would choose to do for ourselves and it’s not clean, it’s not
pretty…in fact it puts us on our knees and it causes us to wash dirt off of
other’s feet! (Matthew 20:27-28; 23:11; Mark 10:45; John 13:12-17)
And then I came upon John 17 and my life, my heart, my soul
is forever changed. Prior to this chapter Jesus had been talking to His
Disciples about what was about to take place with his crucifixion, but of
course, they did not completely understand.
He told them that they would be scattered and basically leave Him alone,
but it would be okay, His Father would be with Him…then it happened…He began to
pray! We find throughout the Gospels that
there were many times that Jesus prayed, however, this particular prayer that
John documented is different and it is oh so special. Jesus prayed for Himself to be able to
glorify His Father in what was to come, then He prayed for his Disciples, He
prayed for their protection, guidance, and strength, but then He prayed for
me! Well, theoretically, He prayed for
all believers, but as I read I thought He was praying for me! He knew me!
He knew that I would be right here in this closet reading this very
prayer that He prayed! He knew this life
would be difficult for His children! He
knew the world would hate His children and that we would need the Holy Spirit
to guide us! He knew that if we were to
love and serve like He taught us that it would also come with a lot of heartache
and we would need the strength that could only come from Him to fulfill that
calling.
He prayed for me, He prayed for little old, insignificant
me! He prayed for me because he loves me
and I am valued by Him! He knows every
heartache that I will every face! He knows every hurt that will ever fill my
heart, my mind, and my soul. He knows
every tear that will ever fall from my eyes.
He knows every trial that I will ever have to face. He knows everything and everyone that will
ever come up against me. He knows what
path He wants me to take. He knows the
blessings He has in store for me. He knows
the love that will be gifted to me. He knows
the talks that will take place between only He and I. He knows that I can never fully comprehend
how much I fully need Him. He knows that
the disappointments, the struggles, the trials, the hurts, the tears, the
wonderings, the valleys only draw me closer to who He truly is. Those things only make His love stronger in
me and therefore, make the love and servanthood for others stronger too. He knows that I need laughter, happiness, and
joy that this life brings and that I will get plenty of that too and all of
that will come embedded with a love that is incomprehensible, but I have also
learned through all this that His ways are truly higher than mine and His
thoughts are oh, so much higher than mine. (Isaiah 55:8-9)
He prayed for me ya’ll,
I can’t stop thinking about it! Sure I have
read it before, but it gripped me like never before…it’s like it was beautiful
before when I read it, but now it is beyond a word that I can even think
of! It is a feeling that I can never
explain…I just feel it; I want you to feel it too!
As I continue to read through His Word, I want to encourage you
to do so as well. Find a quiet place,
whether it is your prayer closet, your porch, somewhere outside, or anywhere you
can get alone with the Living Word of God and just allow God to breath it into
you because no blog, no testimony, no social media post, no word from a friend will
ever come close to what the Holy Spirit can give you through the reading of the
Bible!
