SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 06-11-04
My Worship Time Focus: The Word of Life
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: 1John 1:1
Message of the verse: “That which was from the beginning, which
we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and
our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life.”
(NKJV) “We are writing to you about something which
has always existed yet which we ourselves actually heard and saw with our own
eyes: something, which we had opportunity to observe closely and even to hold
in our hands, something of the Word of life!”
(Philips)
The author of 1John is believed to
be John the apostle, a disciple of Jesus Christ. The date that it is written is believed to be
between 85 & 94 A.D. It was probably
written from Ephesus, which is modern day Turkey. There are many similar things in this letter
with the Gospel of John; for one thing the first verses are very similar.
One of the possible reasons that the
letter was written was to combat Gnosticism, which was beginning to take place
in the early Church. Gnostics do not
believe that Jesus Christ was truly God and truly man, and John knew that He
certainly was.
The first verse speaks of Jesus
Christ, it speaks of His Deity, and it also speaks of His humanity. John says that he has looked upon Him and
that he has also touched Him with his hands. Jesus Christ is eternal, for He
has always existed, and He always will exist; yet He took on humanity in order
to become a perfect sacrifice for the sins of all who would believe in Him, and
that is what John will be writing about in this letter. John calls Him the Word of life in this
letter and He called Him the Word in the Gospel of John. This is partly how the NASB Greek describes
the word: “logos; from 3004; a
word (as embodying an idea), a statement, a speech.” Jesus is the Word of life, and He Himself
spoke about this in John 14:6 where He said:
“I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but
through me.”
Spiritual meaning for my life
today: I have been recently been
studying about worship, and in Dr. Wiersbe’s book on worship he brings up the
word transformation a great number of times, and says that it is the key to
worship. The word in the Greek gives us
our English word metamorphous, and an example of that is a worm turning into a
butterfly. As I look a Jesus as being
the life and transformation as being the key to worship, I believe that as the
Spirit of God transforms me that He is doing it into the “life” that John is
writing about in this verse. Romans 8:29
speaks of the believer being conformed into the image of Christ, and that seems
to me His life that John writes about hear and in his Gospel.
The Word
of God was alive to me as I read it these two days.
My Steps of Faith Today: To do the things I am to do in order to be transformed into
the life that can only come from Jesus.
I want to continue to trust the Lord with our investments, and to
continue to trust the Lord with the outcome of a job with Tim.
Memory verse for the week: 1Cor. 13:4
Love is
patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not
arrogant,
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