Come, Receive

For further research I have gone back and collected many of the verses found since the beginning of the book of John relating to key words and concepts that are emerging as important here. Following is a list of key verses relating to the idea of coming and receiving.

Come

The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! (John 1:29)

He said to them, "Come, and you will see." So they came and saw where He was staying; and they stayed with Him that day, for it was about the tenth hour. (1:39)

He found first his own brother Simon and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which translated means Christ). He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, "You are Simon the son of John; you shall be called Cephas" (which is translated Peter). (1:41-42)

The next day He purposed to go into Galilee, and He found Philip. And Jesus said to him, "Follow Me." (1:43)

Nathanael said to him, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" Philip said to him, "Come and see." (1:46)

Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; this man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, "Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him." (3:1-2)

This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God. (3:19-21)

John also was baptizing in Aenon near Salim, because there was much water there; and people were coming and were being baptized. (3:23)

And they came to John and said to him, "Rabbi, He who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you have testified, behold, He is baptizing and all are coming to Him." (3:26)

"Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done; this is not the Christ, is it?" They went out of the city, and were coming to Him. (4:29-30)

So when the Samaritans came to Jesus, they were asking Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. (4:40)

The sick man answered Him, "Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I am coming, another steps down before me." (5:7)

Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment. (5:28-29)

You are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life. (5:40)

Receive (very close to believe but those are not included in this list)

He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name. (John 1:11-12)

For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. (1:16-17)

Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony. (3:11)

John answered and said, "A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven." (3:27)

What He has seen and heard, of that He testifies; and no one receives His testimony. He who has received His testimony has set his seal to this, that God is true. For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God; for He gives the Spirit without measure. (3:32-34)

Jesus answered and said to her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, 'Give Me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water." (John 4:10)

Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal; so that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. (4:36)

So when the Samaritans came to Jesus, they were asking Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. (4:40)

But the testimony which I receive is not from man, but I say these things so that you may be saved. (5:34)

I do not receive glory from men. (5:41)

I have come in My Father's name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, you will receive him. How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God? (5:43-44)

I can see there is a great deal of instruction for me in viewing these verses together like this. I hope to take more time to review them thoughtfully.

Where to Find Truth

He was the lamp that was burning and was shining and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light. (John 5:35)

You do not have His word abiding in you, for you do not believe Him whom He sent. You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life. (John 5:38-40)

I see something about God's passion to save in these verses that is not often talked about. We often tend to think of Jesus' relationship to the Pharisees and religious leaders is confrontational, fault-finding, abrasive. I believe that is largely because we want to justify our own attitudes when it comes to how we relate to those who disagree with us and so we assume our God as looking and acting like ourselves.

But the real truth is that God is not in the business of condemnation but is in the saving business. (3:17) It is not the pointing out of people's sins that draws them to repentance but it is the kindness of God that leads us to repentance. (Rom. 2:4) The primary purpose of Jesus coming to this earth was to reveal the truth about how God feels about us, to show us His preexistent forgiveness, compassion and love and to shine the light of the real truth about God into our darkened hearts by His revelation of the Father.

Jesus is here appealing to the hearts of these religious people who were resisting His love for them, trying to affirm their positive moves that potentially could align them with the truth about God while at the same time warning them of the choices that were causing them confusion about reality. All of this was designed not to condemn them or to censure them but to clarify the beauty of truth and gently invite them into alignment with the heart of the Father. Any other interpretation of this passage is potentially a distortion of the ministry of Jesus coming to this earth and dying for our sins.

Jesus points out to these men that it was a good thing that they had responded positively to the initial light of truth about God that they had first seen in the ministry of John the Baptist. He says to them that they had been willing to rejoice in that light at least for awhile and He wanted them to know that this was a positive choice. Like any good teacher, Jesus was seeking to establish a connection with these men, seeking an emotional link or handle to their hearts by which He could then begin to draw them toward a greater more perfect revelation of the truth about God.

Likewise, Jesus complimented them in a way, for their studious and diligent searching of the Word of God which was their specialty. These men were very proud of their broad knowledge of the Scriptures and Jesus tried to use that also as another means of attempting to draw them out to believe in greater truth and to embrace the clearer revelations of God that were now available to them.

It is essential that all of us realize that it is not good enough simply to have responded once or twice to the drawing power of God in our experience. As important as it is to initially respond to whatever it was that drew our attention to God in the past, we cannot fall into the deceptive trap that some previous encounter with God is sufficient to keep us in right relationship to God or save us in His kingdom. Just because we may have had some dramatic conversion experience in the past, no matter how authentic that conversion may have been for us at the time, it is not enough to rest on that past response to the power and truth about God as an assurance that we have no need of further conversion.

When someone like John the Baptist comes into our lives and grabs our attention with dramatic and compelling messages of truth, it is right for us to respond with riveted attention, to participate in acts of repentance and turning away from sin toward a closer relationship with God and to obey the promptings of the Holy Spirit in our souls. But it can be a fatal mistake if we try to build our subsequent experience primarily on our past introductions to light instead of being willing to grow with the increasing light that heaven seeks to shine into our lives.

Too often we mistakenly think that further revelations of light might threaten to discredit our previous encounters with the light because some of the facts involved may be seen to be out of harmony with what we were taught as truth previously. Instead of humbly going to the Word of God and seeking God directly for insight and guidance to test what we first learned objectively from the Bible ourselves, we find it much easier to depend on other people's opinions and expositions of the Word and believe that they are more capable of knowing God's will for us and His truth than we can be.

But while God certainly uses people to help instruct and enlighten others, it is a serious mistake to not allow the Spirit of God to instruct us on a personal basis, to tutor us directly in the Word of God and to convict us of things that may seem to conflict with either what we have learned in the past or what others insist is truth in the present. I am not suggesting in the least that we should always be seeking to be different or unique in our views of the Bible, but there is far too much laziness when it comes to knowing what is truth and far too much reliance on 'religious experts' to do our thinking for us instead of entering into a vital, growing, dynamic relationship with God ourselves.

Jesus additionally told these men that it was also a positive thing that they were diligent students of the Word. He did not in the least criticize them for exerting much effort trying to understand the writings that had been passed down to them from their strong religious heritage. But He sought to warn them that their preconceived ideas and their prejudices were blinding them to the very purpose of all of those writings. God had given the Scriptures in the first place to reveal the truth about Himself to mankind, but that truth was a progressive truth, not a static truth that can be analyzed and formulized and standardized through human logic and wisdom.

Like many of us today, these men had assumed that truth is something that can be figured out with enough self-effort and education and knowledge. They believed that to be right with God, all that was needed was to get the right information stored into their brains and to figure out all the right formulas and to eliminate all the wrong interpretations. If they could just figure out the 'secret code' that God had hidden in the Word that would give them the keys to heaven, then they could use that information to live a life of perfect obedience to those instructions and could achieve eternal life.

Many of us are caught in this trap of thinking to some extent. It is embedded in our very nature to look more to the externals and to wisdom and knowledge that we can accumulate to save us from sin rather than to come into a right relationship with our Creator and believe in His mercy and kindness and forgiveness and justice. It is far easier to look to religion and human systems of theology to lead us into salvation rather than to personally admit our inabilities to figure out reality for ourselves and accept the truth about God as revealed in the demonstration of Jesus and His life as lived out on earth.

Jesus complimented these men for rejoicing in the temporary light of the truth as presented by John the Baptist. He also affirmed that it was a good thing that additionally they were diligent students of the Scriptures. But all of that was not enough to bring them into right alignment with what God was seeking in their lives. What God wants for us and what is vital for us to respond to is that we must have a dependent, humble, joyful relationship on an individual basis as well as collectively, with the heart of the Father who created us to live in intimate fellowship with Him for eternity.

The light of truth is always progressive. If I am not willing to have my previous revelations and assumptions about truth repeatedly challenged by the Spirit of God and the Word of God, then I am starting to get stuck in the dangerous rut of tradition and prejudice instead of following on to know the heart of God for myself. Salvation is not a collection of truthful facts about God that I must know in order to pass some cosmic test so I can be allowed into heaven. Salvation is the incredibly good news about how God feels about me that will cause me to progressively release the lies about Him that have poisoned my heart for so long and allow Him to transform me by the presence of His Spirit in my heart that will always draw me into closer alignment with His character at every step of my experience.

According to these passages I am considering here, Jesus is making it clear that to be truly saved I must come to Him to be saved. And what does it mean to come to Him? I have been asking that very question nearly all of my life and God has been slowly revealing the truth about the answer progressively over time. What I am seeing more clearly is that it has more to do with the condition and the openness of my heart toward God than it has to do with my knowledge of religion or my ability to perform a life of good deeds.

God has given Jesus as the ultimate gift of truth by which I can be reconciled from hostility toward God back into an intimate relationship of close fellowship with Him. Jesus is the human face that I can relate to in order to be drawn into a right relationship with God. The response that I choose whenever the Spirit of God reveals a new aspect of Jesus to me determines whether I will deepen my bonds with Him or whether I will move into greater dependence on religion and self-righteousness as my basis for expecting God to save me in His kingdom.

Sadly, religion itself is often the greatest distraction that keeps us from entering into the saving relationship that is so vital for experiencing real salvation. What we think of as truth determines how we are going to view God in our hearts. Our opinions about what God is like is the core problem that sin has caused in our lives and is the real issue that Jesus came to address. Many of these Jews ended up rejecting and finally killing Jesus while continuing to cling to their beliefs that they were going to be saved by keeping God's rules and having a broad and comprehensive knowledge of the Scriptures. But all that that knowledge accomplished for them was to fortify the hardness of their hearts by causing them to believe that their actions and beliefs were justified through their superior knowledge of 'truth'.

Does my study of the Word draw me closer or farther away from the heart of Father?

Does my fascination with some exciting, dramatic speaker that I admire compel me to spend more time getting to know God personally or does it cause me to want to live on predigested feedings of knowledge and dependence on someone else's research and explanations?

Father, thank-you for sending preachers and teachers to bring more light into my life. Thank-you for empowering me to see greater insights and clearer views of truth in Your Word. But keep reminding me that the vital connection I must have has to be much deeper than that, more vulnerable than that, more heart-based than any of those things in my life. Draw me to Your heart with Your cords of loving-kindness and keep me in close dependence on You as You continue to personally draw me with Your Spirit. Let me not become distracted by sensational teachers or be confused by even my own previous views of You and of truth. Mentor me, draw me, train me, discipline me, save me by the power of Your love.

What Does He Give?

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name. (John 1:12)

As I have been reviewing and researching the first five chapters in John I came back across this verse that grabbed my attention. There are a number of key words that I am seeing in this book that I want to pay particular attention to, for the main reason I am even studying this is so that I can experience more deeply myself the kind of transformation that is talked about in this book. I am tired of living in the shallowness of religion and desire to move much deeper into the reality of knowing God personally and having my life become a vibrant channel of life flowing out to bless others.

I am perceiving that belief and receiving are pretty much the same thing in this book. In this verse I find a key word that tells me one of the most important effects of entering into or choosing such a relationship with God. That is to experience the right to be a child of God myself.

As I pondered this recently I wondered just what was behind this word right and so I looked it up. Here are some other translator's rendition of this word and then the Greek original with its definition.

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. (KJV)

But as many as did receive him to them he gave authority to become sons of God – to those believing in his name. (YLT)

But all who have received Him, to them – that is, to those who trust in His name – He has given the privilege of becoming children of God. (WNT)

exousia – (in the sense of ability); privilege, i.e. (subjectively) force, capacity, competency, freedom, or (objectively) mastery (concretely, magistrate, superhuman, potentate, token of control), delegated influence:--authority, jurisdiction, liberty, power, right, strength.

This dramatically expands my internal concept of what God is planning to do inside of me as a result of my believing and receiving Jesus. It seems to me that this is the core description right here of what is involved in being a real Christian. Almost every word in this definition could accurately be placed into the sentence of this verse and bring new insight and meaning to this text as well as new hope for my ability to experience what I need in life.

I am given capacity to be a child of God.

I am given competency to be a child of God.

I am given freedom and liberty to be a child of God.

I am experience superhuman mastery over my sinful nature as I become a child of God.

I am given delegated influence as a child of God.

I am given authority to be a child of God.

I am given both the right and the strength to be a child of God.

I am given ability to be a child of God.

Since all of this flows into me as a result of living in a relationship of receiving Jesus, then it seems that it is even more important that I not only learn just what that looks like and means but far more importantly I need to personally pursue that experience for myself.

Sending or Coming

You have sent to John, and he has testified to the truth.

You are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have (receive) life. (John 5:33, 40)

I am starting to see three main activities: Sending, coming and receiving.

The end results seem to be summed up in the following verse that ties in with these two verses.

I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. (John 14:6)

In reviewing all of the chapters up to this point, here are all the texts that I see that relate to the idea of sending. A few of them are by implication but seem to fit in with the intention of the author.

There came a man sent from God, whose name was John. (John 1:6)

Now here are a few that involve someone else's sending activities.

This is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent to him priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, "Who are you?"

Then they said to him, "Who are you, so that we may give an answer to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself?"

Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. (John 1:19, 22, 24)

You have sent to John, and he has testified to the truth. (5:33)

Now notice how much sending is going on from God's point of reference.

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. (John 3:16-17)

You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, 'I am not the Christ,' but, 'I have been sent ahead of Him.' (3:28)

For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God; for He gives the Spirit without measure. (3:34)

Jesus answered and said to her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, 'Give Me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water." (4:10)

I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored and you have entered into their labor. (4:38)

But the testimony which I have is greater than the testimony of John; for the works which the Father has given Me to accomplish – the very works that I do – testify about Me, that the Father has sent Me. And the Father who sent Me, He has testified of Me. You have neither heard His voice at any time nor seen His form. You do not have His word abiding in you, for you do not believe Him whom He sent. (5:36-38)

When God sent, what was His purpose for sending?

It appears from the book of John in particular that God sent witnesses and the gift of His Son. His motives in sending people was to make offers for us to accept or receive through belief. These offers involve things that we desperately need, things like life itself. I need to investigate more in this passage just what these offers really are and how I can receive them for myself.

On the other hand, it appears than when the Pharisees (and by association, religious people today) sent out people, it was usually for the purpose of insinuating their superiority or authority and for judging the witnesses using their own standards. They sent with an attitude of suspicion and doubt but also sometimes with curiosity. But what is significant, at least according to Jesus, is that they refused to come themselves and receive without resistance what was being offered by God; they refused to believe those He had sent. Instead of coming to receive they remained aloof and at a distance to judge. As a result they deepened the deception and darkness around their souls and their hearts became more and more hardened each time they refused invitations to come.

Apparently one of the reasons they refused to come was because of the issue of competing authority. They wanted authority so badly for themselves that they refused to acknowledge or submit to any other authority that appeared to threaten their established authority that they had worked so hard to achieve. Their kind of authority gave them ability to control the lives of people under their jurisdiction which gave them a sense of value and worth. But they refused to believe that this was a false source of value, that controlling the lives of others around them was not God's way, for they believed that God did the same thing in His government. As is almost always the case, they were acting out of a distorted picture of God that had formed deep in their heart and when a more accurate demonstration of God came along they felt threatened by it instead of attracted to it.

Just as we do today, they failed to grasp the true meaning of many of the terms used in religion. They had adopted or developed counterfeit definitions of most every religious word and as a result were operating a religion based on fear, greed, selfishness and a desire to assert forceful control over others using whatever means necessary to achieve that end. Of course, they relied heavily on Scriptures to defend their positions just as many do today to achieve the same purposes. But just because one can string together texts that appear to justify religious opinions does not mean that they are in tune with the way God operates His Kingdom.

I suspect that today Jesus would be just as out of touch with people in churches as He was when He came the first time. People who today claim to be His followers and claim to be advancing His Kingdom would be just as much at odds with the principles and attitudes that He demonstrated as much as were the Jews when Jesus walked this earth before. Ironically these people claim to believe in Jesus and generously use His stories to promote their plans and schemes – all in the name of ushering in the Kingdom of God on earth. Yet the spirit which motivates them and the methods they employ to advance and grow their ministries or churches are more in tune with the Pharisees and religious leaders in Christ's day than they are with the example of Jesus, who seemed more at ease with prostitutes and addicts than with those in charge of church programing.