John 5:1-21; Acts 17:16-32
"For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it."
(JOHN 5:21)
Have you ever had leftover checks from a bank account you closed? It's a good idea to shred them. When I've had to shred old checks, I would take one check and write it out to my wife for a million dollars. We would laugh at the idea (as if we had that kind of money!) and our momentary "wealth," and into the shredder it would go.
Today we read that the Father and the Son give life to whomever they will. God has life to give because He is life. It is not like a bank account from which He writes checks and is left with a little less life to give after each transaction. He is life, and He has it in infinite perfection. By His authority, He gives it to whomever He wills. The Father and the Son share this life-giving power, and so does the Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit (John 6:63 The Spirit alone gives eternal life. Human effort accomplishes nothing. And the very words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.; 2 Corinthians 3:6 He has enabled us to be ministers of his new covenant. This is a covenant not of written laws, but of the Spirit. The old written covenant ends in death; but under the new covenant, the Spirit gives life).
We serve the Life-Giving God. He is pleased to impart life to us, real life; eternal life. He does this through Jesus Christ, a gift worth more than any check amount you could write.
INSIGHT
NO MATTER HOW MUCH MONEY WE HAVE IN LIFE, WE ARE RICHER BY FAR IN CHRIST JESUS!
READ THROUGH THE BIBLE IN A YEAR
Ecclesiastes 7-8
Psalm 66
John 6
John 5:1-21
New International Version 1984 (NIV1984)
The Healing at the Pool
5 Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. 2 Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda[a] and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. 3 Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed.[b] 5 One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”
7 “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”
8 Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” 9 At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.
The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, 10 and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”
11 But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ”
12 So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?”
13 The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.
14 Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” 15 The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.
Life Through the Son
16 So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him. 17 Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working.” 18 For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
19 Jesus gave them this answer: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, to your amazement he will show him even greater things than these. 21 For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it.
Footnotes:
a. John 5:2 Some manuscripts Bethzatha; other manuscripts Bethsaida
b. John 5:3 Some manuscripts paralyzed—and they waited for the moving of the waters. 4 From time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease he had.
Acts 17:16-32
New International Version 1984 (NIV1984)
In Athens
16 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. 18 A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. 19 Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean.” 21 (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)
22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.
24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27 God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
29 “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man’s design and skill. 30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.”
32 When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.”
Cross references:
A. Acts 17:17 : S Ac 9:20
B. Acts 17:18 : S Ac 13:32
C. Acts 17:18 : ver 31, 32; Ac 4:2
D. Acts 17:19 : ver 22
E. Acts 17:19 : Mk 1:27
F. Acts 17:21 : S ver 15
G. Acts 17:22 : ver 19
H. Acts 17:22 : ver 16
I. Acts 17:23 : Jn 4:22
J. Acts 17:24 : Isa 42:5; Ac 14:15
K. Acts 17:24 : Dt 10:14; Isa 66:1, 2; Mt 11:25
L. Acts 17:24 : 1Ki 8:27; Ac 7:48
M. Acts 17:25 : Ps 50:10-12; Isa 42:5
N. Acts 17:26 : Dt 32:8; Job 12:23
O. Acts 17:27 : Dt 4:7; Isa 55:6; Jer 23:23, 24
P. Acts 17:28 : Dt 30:20; Job 12:10; Da 5:23
Q. Acts 17:29 : Isa 40:18-20; Ro 1:23
R. Acts 17:30 : Ac 14:16; Ro 3:25
S. Acts 17:30 : ver 23; 1Pe 1:14
T. Acts 17:30 : Lk 24:47; Tit 2:11, 12
U. Acts 17:31 : S Mt 10:15
V. Acts 17:31 : Ps 9:8; 96:13; 98:9
W. Acts 17:31 : S Ac 10:42
X. Acts 17:31 : S Ac 2:24
Y. Acts 17:32 : ver 18, 31
New International Version 1984 (NIV1984) Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.®Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
KEEPING FAITH [PART 2]
with Alex Chediak
What is the greatest challenge for today's college student? Many would assume grades or social status. But there is a greater challenge every Christian student will have to face.
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