It’s been quite a while since I was in high school, but I still clearly remember my English Literature teacher emphasizing the importance of how to start a piece of writing, and how to finish well. She insisted that we had to capture the readers’ attention, and then...

“But these are recorded so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” –John 20:31 Friend, I am always in awe of God’s thoughtfulness and love for humankind by sending Jesus and inspiring His...

Change and loss are a few of life's realities that I have become very familiar with over the last ten years. I remember the moment I received the call about my dad passing away, but I remember even more clearly the moments leading up to taking that dreaded phone call....

“Why do we call it Good Friday? Jesus died, dying isn’t good?” I was asked this by a 7-year-old a couple of Easters ago. How would you have answered?  So much of today’s reading is difficult, it's cruel, unfair, gruesome, it doesn’t seem good at all. However, we have...

As I sat down to read our passage for today, I knew I should read the whole chapter to get the context of Jesus’s words, but the enemy was distracting me and pulling my desire and attention away from God’s Word. Anything else seemed to be a better use of my time....

“I can do it myself. Don’t worry about me.”  These words have set the tone for more of my days than I'd care to admit. I like to consider myself a strong, independent woman. And although there is nothing wrong with this mindset, these thoughts of determined...

“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” –John 14:6 Lately, I’ve been feeling like I’m living in what my girls would call, “opposite days" when they were little. An “opposite day” was a day where everything that was...

This passage of Scripture might be a familiar passage, recording when Jesus washed the disciples’ feet. But maybe it’s new to you. Either way, there’s something about reading the Word of God with fresh eyes to see what God is saying through the Word. Just before this...

​​"But Jesus shouted out, “The one who believes in Me does not believe in Me, but in the One who sent Me,  and the one who sees me sees the One who sent Me. I have come as a light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me should not remain in darkness.”...

In his noteworthy book Mere Christianity, theologian C.S. Lewis said: “Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.” ...

Have you ever been in a situation that felt so dark and heavy, where there was little or no hope?  For me, I just returned from overseas and some of the situations I saw with my own eyes felt hopeless. I sat across from brothers and sisters in Christ, praying for God...

“My sheep listen to my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish; no one will snatch them from my hand.”–John 10:27–28 Though not originally from here, I live in a beautiful corner of the world called Northern...

“I am the door. If anyone enters through me, he will be saved, and will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come so that they may have life, and may have it abundantly. “I am the good shepherd. The good...

If you lived in America in the 1980s and 1990s, you may remember when we rented movies (VCRs in my childhood) at Blockbuster. Many of the stores had posters that, on the surface, looked abstract or geometric, but they contained hidden 3D images. I’d stop to stare and,...

Our front porch light burned out a few years ago. Soon after that, the floodlight above our garage also burned out, and it seems they don’t make that model anymore. Did I mention that we live in Eastern Europe on a dirt road with absolutely no city lights? Darkness....

Social media has created some blurred lines and confusion within our society. We can "follow" people that inspire us, while technology allows us the ability to watch lives unfold through a screen we keep in our back pocket. Over time, as we watch the highlight reels,...

Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God!” –John 6:68–69   What kind of choices did you make today? Too many to count? What time to wake up.  What to...

One of the things I’ve always loved about Jesus is how He rarely answered a question in the way people expected. Throughout the Gospels, we see people coming to Him wanting a list of do’s and don’ts or a specific answer, and Jesus rarely delivered. And yet, although...

Who doesn’t love an action-packed movie? The kind that keeps you on the edge of your seat, where you dive from one scene into the next. As the suspense builds, the thrill runs deep! I kind of get that sense when reading John’s gospel. Jesus and His disciples had...

The story of Jesus feeding the five thousand is a familiar and well-known miracle of Jesus. It’s also the only miracle of Jesus that is recorded in all four of the Gospels. In this passage, there’s a lot we can learn about the nature and heart of Jesus. While there is...

Have you been in a place for so long that you feel like there is no way out? That you are too far gone? That you are a lost cause, unseen by God and overlooked by others? In John 5, there is a story of a paralytic, a man who could not walk. He had been paralyzed for...

“Then the father realized that it was the very time Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live,” and he himself believed along with his entire household. Jesus did this as his second miraculous sign when he returned from Judea to Galilee.” –John 4:53–54 This man came...

I wonder, are you like me and enjoy an intriguing drama series on television? The tension builds when the writer slips in a seemingly irrelevant or easily missed detail which actually turns out to be key to the whole story! Well, we find this near the beginning of...

“The Father loves the Son and has placed all things under his authority. The one who believes in the Son has eternal life. The one who rejects the Son will not see life, but God’s wrath remains on him.” –John 3:35–36 I’ve never been great at group projects. Whenever I...

If I was asked to guess the most famous verse in the Bible, I would say John 3:16. It is the only verse that a work colleague has ever asked me to quote over lunch. He’d been watching a sports game over the weekend, saw a sign with John 3:16 on it, and asked me what...

In the 1970’s an American musical genius named Stevie Wonder released a catchy tune titled “Signed, Sealed, Delivered.” The title of the song was taken from a legal term for the contractual deed indicating the validity of a finalized business transaction. A formal...

“This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed at Cana in Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him." –John 2:11 Jesus’ mother knew who to turn to when there was a problem. In Jesus’ day, running out of wine at a wedding...

“Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel!” –John 1:49 How would you describe Jesus? In our reading today, we meet Nathanael, who wasn’t convinced of who Jesus was. His friend Philip came to share the great news of finding...

“I have both seen and testified that this man is the Chosen One of God.” –John 1:34 Whether you’re intimately familiar or new to the story of Jesus, we can learn a lot from the account of John.  Both declarations in today’s Scripture are important: I have seen Him. ...

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was fully God. The Word was with God in the beginning. All things were created by him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created. In him was life, and the life was the...

John’s Gospel is a full account of the ministry of Jesus. However, his account is different from the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. While each Gospel account clearly displays Jesus as the Son of God, the Messiah of the world, each account highlights different...

In the Bible we find many people who received an unexpected calling from God. Many of these people were caught by surprise and many had never before considered the task they were given. They responded in many different ways, some with fear (Gideon), some with...

The Our Security for Eternity Bible study journal is currently available in 22 languages, with more in process!  Our Security for Eternity for Kids is available for download in 11 languages! Help us spread our translations around the world by sending this information...

We are one week away from our next study, Our Security for Eternity! We begin the Our Security for Eternity Bible study on Monday, March 7 and we couldn’t be more excited to dig into God’s Word with you! We're thrilled you've joined us to study the Gospel of John, as...

  One of the biggest and most humbling questions in life is what happens when we die. We long for peace, for certainty to know that, even though our lives on earth will end, there is something more. But how can we know for sure? How can we be certain death is not...