Nuggets From The Book of John

By Nnecy O.

"Nuggets from the Book of John" is an insightful exploration of Jesus' mission on Earth, examining how his life and teachings can guide individuals in living a successful life and fulfilling their own purposes. This book is particularly aimed at two distinct audiences: non-believers and existing believers in Christ. 

 

For those not yet in the faith, it serves as an introduction to the Christian journey, offering a pathway to understand and potentially embrace the teachings of Christ. Concurrently, it acts as a resource for established believers, aiming to deepen their relationship with God and encourage a more devoted and profound spiritual life. Readers are advised to keep a Bible at hand while engaging with the text, as it can enhance understanding and reflection. The ultimate goal of "Nuggets from the Book of John" is to enlighten its readers and, most importantly, foster a closer connection with God through the teachings of Jesus Christ."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishdrive
• Release date: Dec 20, 2023
• ISBN: 1916849490

Book preview

Acknowledgements

"All scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realise what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.

God used it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work."

2md Timothy 3 vs 16 – 17

To God who provided the insights into His word, who made His word relatable and applicable to life and destiny…

Preface

Firstly, thank you for picking up this book.

I must emphasise that I am NOT a pastor, priest or minister. I’m simply a child of God and a believer in Jesus Christ who enjoys studying His word – the Bible.

Every time I set my heart to truly study The Bible, I receive several insights/revelations that are pencilled in this book as nuggets.

Nuggets from the book of John looks closely at the journey of Jesus in fulfilling His purpose on Earth, and what we can learn from His journey to enable us to live life successfully and fulfil our purpose.

It’s intended for those who are not yet believers— to help them understand the Christian journey, with the hope of bringing them to Christ, and for existing believers— to strengthen their walk/relationship with God and grow deeper and more consecrated to Him.

I’d strongly recommend that you have your Bible alongside whilst reading this book.

I trust that this book will enlighten you and, more importantly, draw you closer to God, through Our Lord Jesus Christ!

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

John 1 vs 1 – 5

John 1 vs 6 – 18

John 1 vs 19 - 28

John 1 vs 29 - 51

John 2 vs 1 – 12

John 2 vs 13 – 25

John 3 vs 1 – 8

John 3 vs 9 – 22

John 3 vs 26 – 36

John 4 vs 1 – 42

John 5 vs 1 - 16

John 5 vs 17 – 29

John 5 vs 30 – 47

John 6 vs 1 - 15

John 6 vs 22 - 40

John 6 vs 38 - 71

John 7 vs 1 – 36

John 8 vs 1 – 11

John 8 vs 12 - 20

John 8 vs 21 – 30

John 8 vs 31 - 47

John 9 vs 1 – 12

John 9 vs 13 – 41

John 10 vs 1 – 21

John 10 vs 22 – 42

John 11 verses 1 – 6

John 11 verses 7 – 10

John 11 verses 25 – 26

John 11 verse 45 – 53

John 11 verse 54 – 57

John 12 verse 1 – 8

John 12 verse 12 – 19

John 12 verse 20 - 26

John 12 verse 27 - 36

John 12 verse 37 – 43

John 12 verse 44 – 50

John 13 verse 1 – 20

John 13 verse 21 - 30

John 13 verse 31 – 35

John 13 verse 36 - 38

John 14 verse 1 - 9

John 14 verse 10 - 14

John 14 verse 15 – 31

John 15 verse 1 – 8

John 15 verse 9 – 17

John 15 verse 18 – 27

John 16 verse 1 – 15

John 16 verse 16 – 33

John 17 verse 1 – 6

John 17 verse 7 – 19

John 17 verse 20 – 26

John 18 verse 1 – 11

John 18 verse 12 – 27

John 18 verse 28 – 40

John 19 verse 1 – 16

John 19 verse 17 – 27

John 19 verse 28 – 42

John 20 verse 1 – 10

John 20 verse 11 – 18

John 20 verse 19 – 29

John 21 verse 1 – 14

John 21 verse 15 – 25

Bonus Twemoji_1f609

Nuggets from the Book of John

John 1 vs 1 – 5

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his very book, in your hands, will take you on a journey through the chapters in the book of The Gospel According to John, with the purpose of extracting the nuggets that you need, either to begin or to fortify your walk with Christ Jesus.

The Gospel According to John was written by Apostle John, the disciple whom Jesus loved. It’s believed that he wrote the book to build up believers as well as to win new converts to Christ.

During my personal study of The Gospel, I found what I like to call nuggets from The Gospel that nicely lay out the purpose of Jesus’ ministry on Earth, which in turn explains some concepts of the Christian life.

Seeing the trail of Jesus’ ministry, the why and the how, sheds a light for anyone wanting to understand how to live a Christian lifestyle and get closer to God.

We cannot speak of Christianity or a life with God without speaking of Jesus; He is a fundamental part of God and Christianity. In fact, the word Christian means Christ-like, and Christianity is a faith that is based on the teachings of Jesus.

John 1 verses 1 - 5 introduce Jesus without mentioning His name; it introduces Him as The Word, and it reads:

"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 light of mankind.

And the light shines on in the darkness, but the darkness has not mastered it."

-NET

From these verses, we can extract the following nuggets:

Jesus is God, and God is Jesus

Jesus is God, and God is Jesus; they are both one and the same. This is a very tricky concept to grasp; how can we say they are one and the same? If they are, then why does the bible have records of Jesus referring or praying to God? Does this mean that Jesus was referring to or praying to Himself?

The best way I can demystify this is by saying that God The Father and Jesus are one, just in the same way we say two have become one in a marriage union. However, they are much closer than married couples because Jesus was with God since the very beginning.

In Genesis chapter 1, when God was creating the Heaven and the Earth, the bible records in verse 26:

"Then God said, ‘Let Us (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) make man in Our image, according to Our likeness [not physical, but a spiritual personality and moral likeness]; and let them have complete authority over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the cattle, and over the entire earth, and over everything that creeps and crawls on the earth.’" – AMP

Jesus was right there with God during creation; they are the same image. He did not just appear during the era of the New Testament of the bible, He has been around since the beginning of time, and He has been close to God.

Jesus created everything

Jesus was active during creation; it was through Him that God created everything. In other words, God used Him to create everything.

I imagine it this way - in Genesis chapter 1, when God said let there be light, Jesus created the light. When God said let there be a firmament in the midst of the water, Jesus created the firmament in the midst of the water.

In other words, when God was saying let there be, He was speaking to Jesus, and Jesus did all that God said, and we will see this reoccurring in Jesus' ministry whilst on Earth.

Jesus always did what God asked Him to do and said what God asked Him to say. Throughout His time on Earth, He did not do a single thing outside of the will of God, and that is why I believe John introduced Him as The Word of God. Jesus lives by The Word of God and brings to pass/life The Word of God. He is the living word of God.

Jesus is our light.

Jesus gives life to everything, and that life is the light that guides us or should guide us. I say should guide us because we have to choose whether we follow it or not.

Genesis 2 vs 7 tells us,

The Lord God formed the man from the soil of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

-NET

King James’ Version says, ... and man became a living soul.

That breath is our spirit, and without it, there would be no life. Life was given to us for a purpose, and we cannot find that purpose outside of Jesus.

In Genesis chapter 3, man was deceived by the serpent into disobeying God and eating the fruit of the tree that God specifically told man not to eat. Eating that fruit lead to the fall of man –disconnection from God; we lost not only our place with God, but also our true identity and purpose.

Jesus carries the original life that God breathed into our nostrils, and He came to give us back that life that God originally intended for us, the life tied to our identity and purpose. He shines a light on that life for us to see how we ought to live.

Mankind is in all kinds of peril because we are lost in darkness, many of us are living outside of our God-ordained purpose and running after things that would never satisfy us, and the only way to come out of it is to see, accept and follow the light - Jesus Christ.

John 1 vs 6 – 18

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o see and accept Jesus Christ simply means to believe the testimony of those who God sent to speak of Him and those who have encountered/accepted Him. Then make the decision to officially invite Jesus into your life, and allow Him to guide you both through His teachings and The Holy Spirit whom you will receive when you believe.

John the Baptist was one of those whom God sent to testify about Jesus, his sole purpose or assignment on Earth was to prepare the way for Him - to prepare the hearts of the people to receive/accept Jesus. He went around preaching to the people, informing them of Jesus’ coming, and the need for them to repent of their sin and turn to God. The bible recorded that many who listened to him confessed their sins and were baptised during his time.

Just like John the Baptist, there are people God raised in our dispensation to preach about Jesus and His kingdom. When we hear the message of Jesus, it stirs something within us that leads us to repent for our sins and turn to God. When we do, something wonderful happens in the Spirit.

"But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.

They are reborn - not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God."

vs 12 – 13, NLT

Reborn by God

So what then? What happens when we accept Jesus?

According to John 1 vs 13, we are reborn by God Himself.

The first thing that happens is that heaven throws a party. We can see this in a parable Jesus told in Luke 15 vs 8 – 10 – the parable of the lost coin. He said,

"Or what woman, if she has ten silver coins and loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search thoroughly until she finds it?

Then when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbours, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’

In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of God’s angels over one sinner who repents."

-NET

When we accept God, the heavens rejoice, God, The Father is glad, Jesus is glad, The Holy Spirit is glad, the angels are glad, all the hosts of heaven are glad because God wants us to be with Him.

The second thing that happens is that our record in heaven is wiped clean with the blood of Jesus the moment we repent of them. Every wrong we ever did is erased, and we are given a fresh start with God. 2nd Corinthians 5 vs 17 says,

This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! - NET

Thirdly, our spirit man is reborn – reconnected to God and open to receive from Him. We now need to constantly feed our spirit by studying the word of God – the bible, which is the light that would drown the darkness within, the truth that would reform our thinking and open our eyes to see life from a new perspective and help us live as God originally intended.

It’s worth noting that all of this happens in the spirit realm, physically we remain the same, but spiritually we will be completely new. Our spirit man - the breath that God breathed into our nostrils when He formed us, the breath that made us a living being is completely new.

Our spirit man is how we communicate with God and connect to the spirit realm; without Christ, our spirit man is unable to communicate directly with God.

 The best way I can think of to describe this is using the analogy of spy movies. When a man/woman decides to become a spy, they are given a completely new identity, all traces of their past is completely erased, they drop off the grid and start a completely new life. Everything is new, including their associations. In a sense, they are reborn. In this analogy, Jesus can be likened to the spy agency that recruits the spy, changes his identity, and provides him with a mission and high-tech communication gadgets.

Jesus came to the world over two thousand years ago to reconcile us to God – to restore the broken communication and friendship between us and God, and to show us the loving side of God, and how we ought to live, love, and care for one another.

Verse 14 says,

... He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father's one and only Son. - NLT.

"For the law was given through Moses, but God's unfailing love and faithfulness came through Jesus Christ.

No one has ever seen God. But the unique One, who is himself God, is near to the Father's heart. He has revealed God to us."

- Verses 17 - 18, NLT

The way God deals with us is not by laying down laws that He forces us to adhere to, He is relational. He wants us not only to have a relationship with Him, but also with Jesus and The Holy Spirit.

Jesus is the foundation of that relationship. Being reborn by God helps us see God's love, and understand that God loves us, and created us to have a relationship with Him, a relationship built on sincere love - Agape Love.

The Agape Love of Christ is a love that is patient, kind, not jealous or boastful or proud or rude, and does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.

It is a love that never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

- 1st Corinthians 13 vs 4 - 7, NLT

Jesus demonstrated this love to us whilst He was on Earth, and when He died on the cross so that we might be saved - reborn.

You may be wondering, how can I have a relationship with someone I have never seen?

To that I would say, you may not see Him, but you will feel and hear Him. He is a being, a spirit being, and He lives inside of those who believe and obey Him. He left us the bible, and as we study it, we will hear His voice speaking to us, comforting us, instructing us, challenging us, correcting us, and the list goes on.

He also left His Spirit with us to teach and guide us in all things, including prayer.

Prayer simply means talking to God, telling Him what's on our mind.

With these we can successfully build and maintain a relationship with God, The Father, Jesus, and The Holy Spirit.

John 1 vs 19 - 28

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s I read John chapter 1 verses 19 - 28, I couldn't shake that question in verse 19. No matter what translation of the bible I read it in, the question remained the same, Who are you?

This is a big question that every individual alive will confront at some point in life; it's a very important life-changing question that has attracted the attention of so many philosophies. In addition, when we are reborn by God, our identity changes, we become a new person – a new creation, so we’ll be faced with this question, although it may go something like, who am I/you in Christ?

John the Baptist was asked this question, and for a moment, it seemed as though he was struggling with the answer. Verse 20 says He came right out and said, "I am not the