Those Who Receive

Lesson #11

Consider a meal of a burger, chips and a drink you grab at a drive thru as you hurry on your way. Consider another meal where you sit down with close friends at a well prepared menu of several courses and enjoy an extended time of food and conversation. We can approach the Bible in the same way. We can read a short passage without much thought or we can sit down, take time and prayerfully with God chew on the richness of flavor and enjoy the stimulating pleasure it has to offer. I am finding such richness as we spend time on short text here in John.

Consider the following passage: ⁹ “The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. ¹⁰ He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. ¹¹ He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. ¹² But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, ¹³ who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:9 – 13 ESV).

The world in which we live was perfectly created by Jesus. Mankind was given a choice to walk with God or to walk by himself. As we all know from experience we chose to walk apart from God and experienced spiritual death and its darkness. Jesus, the Word, the Son of God, entered into this world he created through a virgin birth. In the womb of a woman, God entered into the formation of a human to be born physically and spiritually alive. This child, we call Jesus, was fully God and fully man. This union, in the womb of Mary, defies understanding, but in this manner true light came into the world to provide a way to bring God and man back together. As Jesus matured into a man and explained his origin and his mission to those around him, he was not understood and was not received by the very people God had chosen to work through. In our sinful state there are none who can understand; there are none who seeks for God (Romans 3:11). Here God was standing in their midst and they did not receive him.

If sinful people are unwilling to seek God then how is it possible for anyone to turn to God. Consider Paul on the road to Damascus, filled with intent to destroy Christians. But along the way Jesus intercepts him and reveals to him who he really is and in that instant Paul’s life completely changes. It was God’s will that Paul would become a key messenger of the Gospel. It was God that chose me and brought me to my knees before him as a teenager. It is God who chooses us like we might go to an orphanage to choose a child to adopt. Is it fair that some never get adopted? Is it fair that God chooses some and not others? Remember, we are all dead in our sin and deserve eternal separation from God.

Those who are chosen by the will of God (verse 13) are the ones who receive the true light and are then able to receive him, to believe in his name, and have the right to become children of God. To say that everyone is given enough light to make a choice conflicts with the text that it is by the will of God. I personally know it was not me who initially chose God where some of my close friends didn't. It was God who chose me.

Prayer

Father, I know that according to your foreknowledge I was chosen and according to your great mercy you cause me to be born again to a living hope (1 Peter 1:1 – 3 NASB). Thank you that Jesus was obedient to your will to enter into his creation, to live and then to die on the cross to provide access to life and the light of understanding. Father thank you for giving to me through the work of Jesus Christ, the right to become a child of yours. Thank you for the kindness of your grace while through discipline you are conforming me into the image of your Son. Lord, it is so hard to stop listing what I am thankful for, but space requires that I do. In love, a most thankful child.