John 3 and other thoughts............

It amazes me how some days I feel completely overwhelmed with life and things, and other days I am completely at Peace with everything. Maybe some of it is the fact that I need to more fully and completely surrender my "stuff" to God. The first time I ever really understood that was when I was reading The Purpose Driven Life a few years back and let me tell you, I learned a lot from that! I think I actually will be re-reading that one soon!

Anyway to completely surrender everything to God leaves you with, NO worries! It is kind of amazing that God wants us to rely on Him that much, but he does.

John 3
We always hear John 3:16, it's probably the most famous verse from the New Testament. What I get out of this chapter is quite plain and simple, to believe in the Son of God is to accept the gift of Eternal Life.

It goes on to say that those in darkness, stay there so that their wicked ways are not exposed. But if we are honest and truthful, you can stand in the light, as your deeds are done in God. I suppose that is true, to be completely honest with yourself and those around you forces you to be the person God wants you to be. (when I say "you" I really just mean "me").

There is a song that Toby Mac sings, so awesome, it touches me big time. It goes:

"I wanna be in the light, like you are in the light, I wanna shine like the stars in the Heaven. Oh Lord be my light and be my salvation, because all I want is to be in the Light............. there is no other place that I'd rather be than in the light, in the light"

Once we can live our lives openly and honestly then we can be open to stepping in the light of God. He wants us to leave our sinful ways and stand with him. When I think about it, I would rather be standing next to him in His Light than any other place. I think it would feel like the most unbelievable/unconditional Love that we could ever know. Amazing.

John 3 also mentions that Jesus says :
"No one can enter into God's kingdom without being begotten of water and Spirit."

(reminds me of one of the sacraments we practice, baptism, just makes me question infant baptism v. adult baptism again. Not that I think there is a wrong way but when I read John 3:5, I think to know what Jesus makes baptism an important thing at any age!)

I also kind of feel bad for the people that didn't believe Jesus (I mean 2000 years ago). I wonder if I would have believed a human being telling me he was the Son of God. Hopefully I would have felt the Truth and followed him, but I still do wonder.