{"id":945,"date":"2014-01-20T10:37:06","date_gmt":"2014-01-20T16:37:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/wp\/?p=945"},"modified":"2014-01-20T10:37:06","modified_gmt":"2014-01-20T16:37:06","slug":"john-chapter-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/?p=945","title":{"rendered":"John Chapter 18"},"content":{"rendered":"

What an interesting chapter.\u00a0 There are so many storylines that we can relate to.\u00a0 The reading of God\u2019s Word is important because it is God speaking to us and giving us truth.\u00a0 This is why reading and studying God\u2019s Word is foundational.\u00a0 What you learn today will be applicable to many areas of life throughout your life.\u00a0 Applications of God\u2019s Word now are wonderful, but remember we are also building up truth to be used in tomorrow\u2019s situation as well.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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It opens with Judas, who was with Jesus and saw all the miracles the other 11 saw, but he betrays Jesus.\u00a0 Judas heard the same teachings, and felt the love of Christ.\u00a0 But Judas loved money, and Satan filled Judas and blinded him to the truths of God.\u00a0 The scariest thing about spiritual blindness is you still see naturally so you become unaware of your blindness.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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The Second group is the Pharisees.\u00a0 They were religious and self-righteous.\u00a0 The Pharisees knew they were God\u2019s people.\u00a0 They were blinded not by biblical teaching, but by tradition.\u00a0 This is the way we have always done it.\u00a0 Don\u2019t make our ways the right way, unless they are truly biblical truths and teachings we can find in God\u2019s Word.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The third scene is Peter, who grabs a sword and takes the ear off of Malchus.\u00a0 The zeal of Peter is awesome, but it is misplaced.\u00a0 Here Peter is standing up for Christ where Christ does not want Him to stand.\u00a0 Peter did not get that this was the will of God.\u00a0 It was the will of God for Christ to be taken and to die for our sins.\u00a0 Peter who was confused even denies Christ near the end of the chapter.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Peter had his own view on how things are to work.\u00a0 Peter was so determined to let Christ in as Lord; He forgot to listen to the Lord.\u00a0 Don\u2019t make your path so straight that God cannot place a detour in your life.\u00a0 Our ways if not planned by God will always bring us confusion.<\/span><\/p>\n

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We see Caiaphas who really did not want anything to do with Jesus.\u00a0 So Caiaphas just passed the responsibility down to someone else.\u00a0 However, when it comes to Christ, no decision is,\u00a0in reality, a decision against Christ.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Jesus is then brought before Pilate who finds no fault in Him.\u00a0 Pilate liked Jesus, but the crowd does not.\u00a0 Too many times we go along with the crowd, what everyone is doing, instead of standing with Jesus even when we know it is the right thing to do.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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What about Barabbas? A criminal that deserves death gets life.\u00a0 Jesus takes His place physically, as He has taken our place spiritually.\u00a0 Barabbas did not deserve grace and neither do you and I.\u00a0\u00a0 Have you ever wondered why the gospel made it to you?\u00a0 I have.\u00a0 It is pure amazing grace! The grace goes beyond me receiving God\u2019s love and forgiveness but that I got the opportunity to hear it.\u00a0 Don\u2019t even take the opportunity to be saved for granted.\u00a0 To be honest once you hear of His grace, how can you refuse it?\u00a0 Barabbas walked out a free man!\u00a0 I walked out of church that morning I got saved a free man.\u00a0 Praise God for grace!<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course there is Jesus!\u00a0 Jesus is freely giving His life for you and me<\/span>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"excerpt","protected":false},"author":1167,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","filesize_raw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible-reading"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1167"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=945"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":946,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945\/revisions\/946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}