In To Me You See (John 1)

If you look at the sun, s, u, n too long you lose the ability to see, but if you look at the Son, S, O, N long enough you will truly see.  We cannot know who we are and what life is about without knowing the creator of it.  Mankind different than all other creation was made in the very image of God, with the sole purpose of being in fellowship with Him.  Until we know God intimately we are living blind.  If we are going to experience what life was intended to be we must go back to the way it was in the beginning.

This new series is entitled Intimacy, with Christ revealing "In To Me, You See!"  We should expect to grow in understanding our identity and learn to live in an abiding unceasing, intimate relationship with Jesus.  We will be reading through the writings of John, who was called the beloved of the Lord, for he was closest to him, and wrote his books from a deeply intimate place.  Let's now dive into John chapter 1.

John 1:1-5 NLT

1In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He existed in the beginning with God. 3God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him. 4The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone. 5The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.

If you are married, do you remember the beginning, when you first fell in love with your spouse?  Maybe you are like me, that at that time nothing else really mattered but spending time with her, time disappeared, and all I did was think, and breathe Loraine. Falling in love is such a beautiful experience, staying in love is the difficulty.  Having kids, being busy with work, dealing with finances, all this tends to dampen the passion of when we first fell in love.  We see in Revelations 2:4 the call to return to our first love, it is not just a word to the church of Ephesus, it is a word to all whose love has become lukewarm.

Do you remember the beginning of your relationship with God, when He revealed Himself to you? I remember when I was radically born again, I felt alive for the first time, everything changed. Now I had this overwhelming desire to know God, so I dug into the Word and I felt I wasn't reading it, but it was reading me. The bible literally is alive, a person, as we see in the book of John 1.  

The Word always existed, and all things were created through Him. Life cannot be known apart from Him and whatever one thinks they know is nothing but deception, for one cannot see in the dark. Until we are born again, we are blind! The Word brings Light and Life!

We now learn about John and the Word becoming Flesh, in the person of Jesus.  John's purpose was to prepare the way, which he did by preaching repentance and having it symbolized through the baptism of water.  Yet, he promised that there is one coming greater than he, who will baptize with the Spirit and Fire.  Jesus will transition the age from the law under Moses to the law of grace and truth under Him.  He will make it possible to return to the garden and experience once again the fullness of God.

Once the ministry of Jesus began, He called others to follow Him.  To receive Jesus goes beyond just believing in Him.  It is like when you find the person you want to marry, you cannot just believe it, you got to act on it, you must approach the person and begin a relationship of discovering one another, eventually leading to the seal of commitment being marriage, where the two now become one.  Life is no longer lived alone but in partnership with another.  There is no difference in receiving Jesus we are to become one with Him.  He is the head though, we are to follow Him, not He follows us.  Yet, in following Him, all of our true desires will be met, our God-given destiny will be lived out.

I hope you are ready to go on this journey with me of deeper intimacy with Christ.  Start by making sure you are born again, and secondly answering the call to follow Him.