I had an extraordinary experience yesterday.
In the morning, I started using the BibleGateway to look up verses about the early church, and I found some interesting things. However, it was exhausting me and the whole time, I wanted to forget it and just read the gospel of John.
For many years, that was the only part of the Bible I could ever read at all. In fact, sometimes I could only read the one chapter about the Good Shepherd.
Finally, I was all, forget this. I'm going to go spend some time with Christ.
And oh my. First I read John in The Message version of the Bible, which was beautiful. For example:
"Every person the Father gives me eventually comes running to me. And once that person is with me, I hold on and don't let go. I came down from heaven not to follow my own whim but to accomplish the will of the One who sent me.
"This, in a nutshell, is that will: that everything handed over to me by the Father be completed—not a single detail missed—and at the wrap-up of time I have everything and everyone put together, upright and whole. This is what my Father wants: that anyone who sees the Son and trusts who he is and what he does and then aligns with him will enter real life, eternal life. My part is to put them on their feet alive and whole at the completion of time."
John 6:37-40
Right, yes? Beautiful. So, then I read it over again, with the Amplified version of the Bible:
All whom My Father gives (entrusts) to Me will come to Me; and the one who comes to Me I will most certainly not cast out [I will never, no never, reject one of them who comes to Me].
For I have come down from heaven not to do My own will and purpose but to do the will and purpose of Him Who sent Me.
And this is the will of Him Who sent Me, that I should not lose any of all that He has given Me, but that I should give new life and raise [them all] up at the last day.
For this is My Father's will and His purpose, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in and cleaves to and trusts in and relies on Him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up [from the dead] at the last day.
John 6:37-40
So then I was captivated. I kept putting my hands over my face, like, oh my goodness! He's so full of emotion. He was angry and tender and loving and frustrated and anguished. Sometimes He's bitingly intelligent and I stand amazed at His wit. Sometimes He seems weird and absentminded, like when He's drawing in the dust, or making a paste out saliva.
Lots of times I can't understand Him. Why would He make the poor, innocent fig tree wither? Could it help that it didn't have any figs? But a god you could completely understand wouldn't be God at all.
I just keep getting blown away by what I was seeing. I kept thinking, that was God. God said that. God felt that. They said that to God.
Like this:
They said, "Where is this so-called Father of yours?"
Jesus said, "You're looking right at me and you don't see me. How do you expect to see the Father? If you knew me, you would at the same time know the Father."
-John 8:15
The Message is the only version that translates it this way, but it broke my heart. I saw Christ in the temple, with His arms wide, saying, "I'm right here. I AM. I am your God, your creator, standing here in front of you and you don't see Me."
I wanted to be in the crowd, so I could go running to Him and throw myself into His arms and I say, I see You! I see You! I belong to You! I'm Yours!
I don't think I ever realized that Jesus prayed before He was taken away. I read it, and I was blown away. My skin was tingling. He was interceding for us; I heard His very words. He prayed for me.
"And now I am coming to You; I say these things while I am still in the world, so that My joy may be made full and complete and perfect in them [that they may experience My delight fulfilled in them, that My enjoyment may be perfected in their own souls, that they may have My gladness within them, filling their hearts].
I have given and delivered to them Your word (message) and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world [do not belong to the world], just as I am not of the world.
I do not ask that You will take them out of the world, but that You will keep and protect them from the evil one.
And so for their sake and on their behalf I sanctify (dedicate, consecrate) Myself, that they also may be sanctified (dedicated, consecrated, made holy) in the Truth.
Neither for these alone do I pray [it is not for their sake only that I make this request], but also for all those who will ever come to believe in (trust in, cling to, rely on) Me through their word and teaching,
That they all may be one, [just] as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be one in Us, so that the world may believe and be convinced that You have sent Me.
John 17:13-15, 19-21
I got jealous a lot. I want to be like the disciple that was reclining with his head on Christ's shoulder at the last supper. I wanted to be able to tip my head up and whisper a question in His ear and have Him answer me.
Except that frequently, I do. Anyone can. Well, not in the flesh like that. But I can lean my whole self into Him and whisper a question and He does answer me.
Sometimes His answer is a loving silence that I can't translate very well in words. Like, He's saying, you'll have to leave the answer to that in Me for now; I'll guide you into that further on down the road, but I love that you wonder about it.
Sometimes it's an actual answer. Like, He speaks to me.
I was dancing around the kitchen on tiptoes as I made spaghetti. I loved all over my husband as soon as he got in the door. The man didn't know what to do with me.
I kept waking up last night with this feeling of warm delight all through me and then I would remember again. God was with me. Christ was in me, and I in Him. He was present and available. I have my being through Him.
We can't love Christ in the flesh, because His body isn't down here anymore. Obviously. Instead or because of, or simultaneously, we love the people around us here, and loving them is loving Him. Anyway, that's the conclusion I came to. Our acts of service to each other are really acts of service to Him. Or they can be.
I used to read the Gospel and hear nothing but condemnation. Even when Christ spoke directly to the Pharisees, I thought He must be talking about me, and my sinful heart, which was full of decay while the outward part of me looked deceptively attractive.
I thought, I am a miserable creature and cannot come close to Him. I told myself it is a terrible covetous sin that I wish to be.
How bound up I was in self hatred! No wonder I couldn't read the Bible. It was nothing but a lash for my soul.
Come to think of it, I don't even know how it was that I got free of that. I still read things that cut, but instead of hurting myself with them, I give them over to Him.
Sometimes, He explains them to me. Sometimes I then put the explanation right out of mind, because I can't accept His grace.
Other times, He doesn't explain them, but there is a peaceful rest, because He is carrying His own words for me, if that makes sense. He's holding on to them, until I can understand them.
I'm so grateful that I'm alive, that I exist, so that I can know Him. The fact that God is as He is, and that He made me as I am, is astounding to me. His love of us is beyond understanding.
