Faith allows us to seek God. In order for faith to grow we must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
If we seek Him we will encounter the triune Godhead. Jesus, the incarnate Word Of God, opens the door of our spiritual understanding allowing Holy Spirit to take His teachings and make them come alive in our life. These are spiritually discerned and seem foreign to the natural man. Without Holy Spirit we would be unable to accept, let alone understand, them.
It is promised that if we hold up the love that God gifted mankind, in the person of Jesus Christ, the world will be drawn to Him.
Love draws others to Him, not dissension, not infighting. God thrives in order not in chaos. His agape love for His creation changes everything as we know it!
Of the three gifts we are given, faith, hope and love, the greatest of these? LOVE!
1 John 4:10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
1 John 4:9 in this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.
Confessing our sin right away allows us to live in a place of mercy and forgiveness before God (1 John 1:9). Psalm 106:1 reminds us that "his steadfast love endures forever." We need not fear God running out of mercy, for it is everlasting! First5
It is the great irony, and heartfelt beauty: Our strength and resilience does not come from a show of force or bravado, but in the freedom to be tough enough to be soft.
We are prophets—of steadfastness, justice, compassion and mercy—when we do not hide our woundedness.
When we find the wherewithal to stand in the middle of it all, even without words. And let the healing begin there, knowing that we are on this journey together. SabbathMoments
John 3:12–17
12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven. 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. 16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. The New King James Version
Jesus is alluding to His heavenly origin. Since He comes from heaven, He is qualified to speak authoritatively about heavenly things. The implication is that no one has both ascended to heaven to receive divine revelation and descended to earth to give an account of that revelation in the same way that Jesus has as the incarnate Word of God.
God loved the world is a verse that presents a concise summary of the gospel message, tying the events of Jesus’ death to God’s love for the world He created. The statement is remarkable in its depiction of divine care for the entire world—not just His chosen people, Israel.
Conversely, the Nicene Creed used this term to assert Jesus’ inherent relationship to the Father: that as the eternal Son He is “begotten [gennēthenta], not made” by the Father.
John prefers to refer to Jesus as the “Son” and God as the “Father”. Jesus’ reflection and representation of the Father is complete. As one sent by God, Jesus fully represented Him on earth. Faithlife Study Bible
Earthly things refers to things that occur on earth, like the new birth, the wind, and perhaps miracles. Heavenly things refers to events like Christ’s ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit.
Nicodemus may have believed in Jesus’ miracles the majority of the Jewish council did not.
Nicodemus, referring to the new birth, asks, “How can these things be?” Here Jesus answers the question. New birth is by the Son, by the Cross and by faith. Every time the words lifted up occur in the Gospel of John there is a reference to Jesus’ death. When Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, those who looked at it lived. So it is with the Son of Man.
This is the first time eternal life is mentioned in John’s Gospel. When a person trusts Christ, he or she is born again and receives eternal and spiritual life, God’s kind of life.
God’s love is not restricted to any one nation or to any spiritual elite. At His first coming, Jesus came so that the world through Him might be saved. When Jesus comes again, He will come in judgment upon those who refused His offer of salvation. The NKJV Study Bible
The wind bloweth where it listeth for us; God directs it. The Spirit sends his influences where, and when, on whom, and in what measure and degree, he pleases. Though the causes are hidden, the effects are plain, when the soul is brought to mourn for sin, and to breathe after Christ.
Thus the things of the Spirit of God are foolishness to the natural man. Many think that cannot be proved, which they cannot believe. Jesus Christ is every way able to reveal the will of God to us; for he came down from heaven, and yet is in heaven. We have here a notice of Christ’s two distinct natures in one person, so that while he is the Son of man, yet he is in heaven. God is the “HE THAT IS,” and heaven is the dwelling-place of his holiness. The knowledge of this must be from above, and can be received by faith alone. Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary
Numbers 21:9 So Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.
John 3:36 He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”
John 6:38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.
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