JOHN: THE GOSPEL OF BELIEF - Learn to live for God’s approval. Learn to ignore the immediate accolades of the crowd. Learn to live with a certain distance from the fickle and the empty trends of those clamoring for the largest piece of your heart. Live every moment looking for Father God’s smile. And let God place His glory on your life.

FOUNDATIONS FOR RECONSTRUCTION: Jesus knew a great danger lurked just under the surface of our lives. He knew it was easy to become so preoccupied with even legitimate concerns that Kingdom life shrivelled from lack of attention and thought. Physical concerns push their way to the top of our minds. That’s why Jesus warned again seeking these things. On the other hand, spiritual pursuits require study, prayer, thought and discipline. They don’t naturally stay in the front of our minds. You and I have to re-seek and re-pursue and re-establish them constantly or they lose potency in our lives.

JOHN: THE GOSPEL OF BELIEF - Going to God’s house is and should be both joyful and serious. The sincere and humble receive the grace they need and don’t deserve. Happy people these, indeed. But there’s always a needed seriousness - an alertness to every witness to divine truth. We are always being made more accountable for increased hearing and obedience. Let the truth inside your life. Drive out whatever makes witness to Christ seem irrelevant or unimportant. Slay those idols. And let every hearing of divine truth make your soul increasingly free.

FOUNDATIONS FOR RECONSTRUCTION - I am able to recognize when a person’s actions are contrary to God’s Word. I do have the duty to pray for a wayward brother, and I do have the chance to go privately and gently to help a brother caught in a fault. If a person is stubborn and persistent in his or her sin I can also bring that to the attention of those who give leadership in the body of Christ. Again, provided what I say is verifiable and certain.

JOHN: THE GOSPEL OF BELIEF - Living faith produces Christ-honoring fruit and apart from abiding in Christ, even humanitarian and charitable works, turn into filthy rags before God. This is why judgment has been given to the Son. It is God’s way of revealing to the world that Jesus Christ, God the Son, is the safe, fruitful place - the only place to confidently hear the voice of the Son when He calls your body from the grave.

FOUNDATIONS FOR RECONSTRUCTION - If you had a servant who came to your house everyday, but did no actual work. He just came, sat at your table, ate your food, drove your car, watched your TV, played with your dog, but never did any actual work for you - how long would you keep him? And wouldn’t you feel cheated? We are not our own. And the Bible says, it is required of servants that they be found faithful.

JOHN: THE GOSPEL OF BELIEF - It is easy to confuse a gracious God with a heavenly genie. It’s easy to measure Christianity by how many of your problems it solves while leaving your moral choices totally in your own hands, like God just pays your Visa bill and lets you keep spending as you like. Christianity doesn’t work that way, but that’s not because Christianity doesn’t work. It’s because what you’re trying to do with God’s grace has nothing whatsoever to do with Biblical Christianity.

FOUNDATIONS FOR RECONSTRUCTION - If you’ve lived a life of deceit and dishonesty, when you come to Christ, you renounce and forsake that behavior. And you can. If you’ve lived a life of sexual immorality and licence, when you come to Christ, you renounce and forsake that behavior. And you can. If you’ve lived a life dominated by fits of rage and temper, and you come to Christ, you renounce and forsake that behavior. And you can. But first, there are two monumental steps that every searching Christian must take. You must believe that Jesus can make you clean and free. And you must decide to renounce the sin revealed by the Holy Spirit. Remember, God will work as you commit.

JOHN: THE GOSPEL OF BELIEF - If Jesus promises, His authority has the same effect whether anyone can see Jesus physically present or not. It’s His world. It’s His kingdom. It’s His rule. Power isn’t tied to the visibility of Jesus. You can’t bring your loved ones to a physical Jesus here on earth. You have to have others pray for you without seeing Jesus at the front of any church or prayer room. But you have, wonderfully and faithfully recorded, the very words of Jesus. And we are invited by this wonderful second sign to believe in the word of Jesus to your broken life when Jesus isn’t physically present.

JOHN: THE GOSPEL OF BELIEF - Nicodemus and the Samaritan Woman are both in the dark about how spiritual life is to be found and received. John is showing us the different primary ways through which people reject eternal life in the Son. Though Jesus uses different terminology, His point is the same with each. There is a spiritual regeneration that is needed right at the core of their beings. Nicodemus needs to be “born again”(3:3). The Samaritan woman needs inward “living water”(4:10), and “eternal life”(4:13).