Book Excerpts
I suspect the magnificence I see in nature is but a mere drop compared to the full measure or God’s glory. As the people feared Moses’ radiant face after his encounter with God’s glory, were God to reveal even for the briefest of moments his full glory I would be totally undone. How amazing that the God who created the universe desires to make his glory known to us. p. 49
In the Genesis account of creation, light, life, and darkness are central themes. On the first day, God created light and separated it from darkness. On the fourth day, he separated day from night, to separate light from darkness. On the third, fifth, and sixth days, he created life: vegetation for the land, living creatures for the waters, birds for the air, land animals, and finally, humans. These three – life, light, and darkness – are also prominent themes in John 1. p. 6
A life marked by grace will be apparent to others. It can be seen in the way we respond to others: extending grace to others is a reflection of the grace we have received from God. True grace is string-free; it is given without expectation or requirement to reciprocate. It is other-centered. Yet it is also an element of self: one must accept that one’s grace from God is not earned, could never be earned, and is a free gift. p. 57
The first step in being born of God is to be willing to receive God, This doesn’t have to be as hard as many of us try to make it. It can be as simple as an accepting sigh, a whispered “Yes,” or a raised hand in response to an altar call. It can take the form of an anguished crying out in the night or the awed response to the birth of a child or the sight of a snow-covered mountain, God can, does, and will use anything to draw out an accepting response from our spirit to his. p. 31
During Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well, twice he said to her that true worshipers would worship “in spirit and in truth” because God is spirit. This was a radical concept at the time because for generations people had journeyed to specific places to worship. For example, the Samaritans worshipped on a mountain near Jacob’s well, and the Jews worshiped in Jerusalem. Here Jesus is affirming that in the future Tod would be worshiped in spirit and truth. This kind of worship – true worship – takes place anywhere a believer may be when his spirit connects with God’s spirit. pp. 72-73
Love is the greatest attribute of all. Obeying the truth enables us to “have sincere love” (1 Peter 1:22). We are to love with actions and truth (1 John 3:18). What good is it to listen to these words and not put them into practice (Ezekiel 33:31)? We must be sincere in our love and devote ourselves to each other in brotherly love (Romans 12:9-10). Just as it was God’s love for us that motivated God to send his son to die for us, the love we have received from God motivates us to extend that kind of love to others. p. 77
In Luke 2:40, we see that even as a child, God’s grace rested on Jesus: “he was filled with wisdom and the grace of God was on him.” The passage in John 1:14-17 is the only other place in the gospels where ‘grace’ is mentioned – and it appears three times. This passage explains that (1) Jesus “came from the Father, full of grace and truth, (2) that from the fullness of Jesus’ grace we have received blessing after blessing, and (3) “grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” Thus it follows that God is the source of grace, Jesus embodied that same measure of grace, and we receive that same grace through Jesus. In other words, God’ favor rested on Jesus, and Jesus shares that favor with us. pp. 55-56
What do we know about light in this universe? We know light displaces darkness, and that just a little light displaces much darkness. We also know light is born from the expenditure of energy: the sun and stars, firelight, light bulbs, lightning. What do we know about the light in John’s gospel? The Greek word for life, phos, is used seventy-three times in the New Testament. It means “light, daylight, firelight.” Altogether the word phos appears twenty-two times in sixteen verses in the book of John; six of those sixteen times phos appears in John 1. p. 10