Today’s Reading: Isaiah 60; Isaiah 61; Isaiah 62; John 1
Scripture: John 1:35-39
35 The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. 36 When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, "Look, the Lamb of God!" 37 When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. 38 Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, "What do you want?" They said, "Rabbi" (which means Teacher), "where are you staying?" 39 "Come," he replied, "and you will see." So they went and saw where he was staying, and spent that day with him. It was about the tenth hour.
Observation: Two of John's disciples catch the hint that John gives them and turn to follow Jesus. Jesus sees them and asks them question. Notice His tone: "What do you want?" It seems almost rude. And their answer is not an answer at all, but it is another question: "Where are you staying?" But their answer is there in that question. They are saying, "we want to hang out with you." And Jesus gets the message, "come and you will see" or in other words, "come on and check it out." They spent the day together and that was the beginning of a beautiful relationship.
Application: This is how relationships grow. We have to hang out with people, spending time at their place, having them over to our place. This kind of interaction must happen if we are to grow a relationship with any depth of staying power. This is the reason I am such a maniac about getting people together. Unfortunately, our culture is trending more and more toward isolating people from each other with super-busy schedules, TV, the Internet, etc. So I am working against the culture tide. But that won't stop me, (although it is a bit discouraging). So hey, throw me a bone and spend some time with someone new this week. Expand your circle of relationship by inviting someone to your home (or do what I do and invite yourself over to their place!) and take the opportunity to plant the seeds of relationship. The eventual harvest will be worth the effort. Trust me, you will thank me.
Prayer: Lord, thank You for sending Jesus to live as a friend among us. Thank You for the example of a man who opened His life to others to spend time and share Himself with them. Because of this, we have the Gospels, and the Disciples, all of whom were trained through the process of a close personal relationship with Jesus with much time spent together. Lord, help us to open our lives to new people who need to receive our love and give love in return. Help us to be those who take the example of Jesus and live it ongoingly and increasingly.
This I pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.
3 comments:
Amen my friend. Thank you.
I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself. My name is Edward Fuel, my wife's name is Mayra and we have 6 children(Jesus 17, Alexander 14, Mayra 16, Angel 11, Andrew 7, and Victoria age 2). We are new to the Sacramento area and are struggling to get to know new people. We really miss our old church as we had a few very good Brothers and Sister that have been a blissing to our family. New relationships are hard, especially when you are not good at starting relationships. I understand the blessing a family in the chuch can be on another family. My pray is that our family would find a new home at Foutainhead and to begin to be a blessing to others. God could have just sent down his Holy Sprit but he also sent his Son so that we could have relationship with Him.
Edward,
Thank you for this introduction and for the sharing of your heart. I would very much like to help you to do all that you have shared here. The truth is that our church has not been very good at making this happen and I would like to ask you to help me figure out why and fix it. Would you be willing to do this? Your perspective as a person coming in from the outside would be invaluable to us. Let's get together and talk.
Thanks again for your openness and honesty,
Pastor Mike
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