Our study of the Gospel of John is officially a wrap. We started in John 1 right at the new year and chapter by chapter, we’ve clung to the purpose of this book: that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by BELIEVING you may have life in His name (John 20:30). I pray that you found that belief. Alister Begg said this about truth:
“Once the truth of God has obtained an entrance into the human heart and subdued the whole man to itself, no power, human or infernal, can dislodge it. We entertain it not as a guest but as the master of the house.”
Whether you’ve been with Divinely Interrupted the entire time through the book, you joined somewhere along the way, or you were sporadic in your studying—you belong. I attended a Microsoft global summit in Seattle recently with 150 of the largest S&P 500 companies in the world. It was so out of my league, friends. However, I’m grateful God gave me the courage to go because it made me realize how human we all are.
When we strip away our titles—whether that’s wife, mama, teacher, leader, butcher, baker, or candlestick maker…we each need a deep and intimate belonging relationship with our Lord and Savior. It doesn’t matter who you dance alongside in this world, you’re dancing with someone who is either eternally connected to you through Jesus or not. As grey as we want to make life, Jesus makes it simple with His words in Matthew 12:30: "Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.”
As we go through this next season together—I pray that you choose to gather. Gather at the table with your loved ones and with people you don’t love. Resist making the “one great mistake” that Andrew Murray speaks of below:
I’ll leave you with a quote from The Common Rule: Habits of Purpose for an Age of Distraction by Justin Whitmel Earley and it reads:
“One of my favorite cultural critics, Ken Myers, argues that the kind of atheism we experience in America today is not a conclusion but a mood…If secularism is not a conclusion but a mood, we cannot disrupt it with an argument. We must disrupt it with a presence.”
You are called to be that presence, beloved. Gather with others at the table in this season. Love the unlovable. Be Jesus. As British evangelist Rodney Smith once said, “There are five Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the Christian, but most will never read the first four.” Your purpose or “why” in life is to carry the divinely interrupting Truth to the lost. They may not know the Truth simply because they don’t know you. How will you change that from this day forward?
Be sure you’re signed up for the Hosea study (sign-up below), which will focus on how powerful love overcomes rebellion and you’re following along on Instagram and Facebook!