John: True Belief Brings Joy
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Keep on believing, see what others do not; that’s exactly what John did. By inspiration of the Holy Spirit, as John wrote this gospel account, he wrote to help us keep on believing. The book of John is an encouraging book that helps us realize that true belief brings great joy. This book for believers helps one go through times when your belief may struggle. As you read John the truths revealed help you to keep on believing.
In the gospel of John, the word Jesus occurs 256 times. Yet, the name of John, who wrote the gospel, never occurs in the book. The word believe, believes, or believing occurs 98 times. The word God occurs 83 times. Love occurs 26 times. Truth occurs 25 times. It is overwhelming how many times this idea of belief occurs through the book of John.
Matthew pictured Christ as the king of the Jews; Mark wrote seeing Christ as a servant while focusing on writing to the Romans; Luke focused on Jesus as the Son of Man and wrote to the Greeks. However, John focused on Jesus as the Son of God and he wrote to the whole world. The first three gospel accounts, Matthew, Mark, and Luke deal primarily with the events of Jesus’ life. All the historical facts about Jesus are found in Matthew, Mark and Luke. But when you come to the gospel of John, he does not write about the traditional facts. You will not read about the birth of Jesus in the book of John. You will not read about the temptations of Christ and many of the historical events. About 90% of the book of John is not found in Matthew, Mark and Luke. That is significant!
John wrote about the spiritual meaning of the events of Jesus’ life. He applied the truth of Jesus to our life. John gets into a personal intimate relationship level of knowing Jesus.
When John first started following Jesus, he had an older brother named James. Their nickname was sons of thunder. They wanted to call down fire from heaven to slay the people who were treating Jesus wrongly. But in the book of John, we do not see him as a son of thunder, we see him as the apostle of love. John is the one who loved Jesus with all his heart.
While this is a divine book, you do not get to know Jesus simply by reading. You must experience Him. The purpose again of this book is to convince a sinner of the true person of Christ, that he might believe and once he does, to keep on believing.
Many theologians called John a mystic. By that they mean one who thinks too spiritual, not earthly enough. But we love the way in which John writes because he looks at the life of Christ and helps us see what it means to follow Christ. It is one thing to say you are a Christian, but it means more to practice the principles of Christianity. John moves us toward that practice by teaching us how to keep on believing. We pray you will experience Jesus in a deeper way than ever before as you study Christ through John’s writing.
From John: True Belief Brings Joy by Alison Veazey and Kerry Skinner. Click here to get your copy.