Bible Stories for the Young
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Have you ever thought about what makes a good snuggler? Like it’s pretty hard to snuggle and relax with someone who is talk, talk, talking all the time, filling up the air with words... Or who is squirming around and busy, busy, busy trying to get everything just right. Or who is always worried, worried, worried about themselves or other people.
Of course, it’s not a problem to love a person like that and be there for them as a loyal, never-giving-up friend. But, to relax with a person like that is quite difficult. It’s much easier to be at peace with someone who just enjoys your company and trusts you—without you having to explain or prove everything.
Did you know that there are a lot of little clues in the Bible indicating that John was someone Jesus could relax with?
So as we read some words John wrote down, I want you to do something for me: Relax... and at least once, listen to this story with your eyes closed. John is telling us some wonderfully ginormous things that he learned. But John didn’t learn any of this by trying really hard to “understaaaand.” Nope. He learned by snuggling up close to Jesus as a friend... and letting that closeness be enough, enough, enough. So, close your eyes and snuggle up to Jesus in your heart as you listen.
John wrote:
”What was true from the beginning... I’m a witness. I’ve heard it... I’ve seen it with my own eyes... touched it with my own hands... All these things we heard and saw and felt, we now shout out to the world about it.”
(About what?)
...about “God’s living message of boundless, supernatural life.”
He’s talking about Jesus! The Word of Life.
A lot of people read what John said about what he saw, heard and touched and think he’s just talking about getting to physically see and touch and hear Jesus in person. While that is incredible, there is no way that was the only thing John was talking about.
John himself says he is testifying about the supernatural God-Life that he witnessed in Jesus.
As we told you in the last story, the Bible wasn’t written in English. John’s letter was written in Greek, and the words John used were vibrant and alive. So as we continue, I’m not going to just read John’s words in English, but I’m going to try to read it by using the Greek definitions of the words.
From the very beginning—before time itself—we proclaim the One who has always existed. This is the Logos, God’s Living Message that holds the universe together. We have heard it with our own ears, seen it with our own eyes, and even touched it with our hands. This is no abstract idea or distant force—this is the Word of Life, real and alive.
This Life—this boundless, eternal, supernatural Life—was shown to us plain as day! It burst forth into our world, and we saw it. We are witnesses to this Life, and now we’re telling you: the Forever Life, the supernatural God Life that was with the Father from the very beginning has now been shown to us.
We’re telling you this so that you, too, may share in this intimate connection with us. And this connection isn’t just with us; it’s with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. We write these things to you so that your joy—our joy—may be complete, full, overflowing!
The New Covenant that Jesus died to establish was a covenant involving Heaven itself. But not mere words or information about Heaven, but a portal, a doorway into Heaven... an invitation to touch Heaven... to experience Heaven now, through covenant relationship and daily companionship with Jesus.
Jesus Himself said Eternal Life is KNOWING Him, the Only True God. And THAT touches Heaven. That is the portal into His World, His Life, starting right here, right now on earth.
And John, along with those who had received the present, the gift of the Holy Spirit, had been seeing and hearing and experiencing a whole new supernatural life in another dimension... a life that always was and always will be.
God IS Light. There’s no darkness in Him, not even a single tiny speck of darkness! So, if you want to be Jesus’ friend, you have to be in the light, too.
If you say you’re walking along together in Him, but you’re walking in darkness, you’re lying. But if you walk in the light, as He is in the light, then you have connectedness/togetherness with Him and with all those also in His light. And you are made clean by the blood of Jesus.”
We know we’ve come to know Him if we do what He says. If you say you know Him, but you don’t do what He says, you’re lying. Whoever claims to live in Jesus must be living how He lived, walking how He walked.”
John was not saying you have to try to copy Jesus’ physical way of how or where He walked. John is saying that anyone who claims to live in Jesus better be living by the same source that Jesus lived by. A supernatural source. A connection with Heaven.
You can’t come into His family by any other way than denying your sins and self-life, being washed in His blood, and rising to walk in a new life just like Jesus did when He rose from the dead. The very definition of being “Born again,” becoming a new creation, has to be a supernatural thing, doesn’t it? No one can just go through some motions and make being BORN happen.
But some people think they can be part of God’s Family by just doing things that may LOOK “good” or “right” on the outside, without dying to their self on the inside. Do you think God is tricked by that? Not at all.
That would be like some stranger trying to trick your mom or dad into thinking they were you by wearing a mask. “Good morning, it’s me your daughter.” Would your mom or dad be okay with that, or would they think that was kinda creepy? Yeah, creepy.
Well, God is not tricked either. When you are truly born again, you come into His Family. You get His spiritual DNA and are dressed in His Life and in the armor of God. And no amount of mimicking or masking or masquerading is going to trick God. (And this is what John’s letters are about—how to recognize who’s got God’s DNA because they really truly have God’s Life, Light, and Love.)
So John really just said to them: Whoever says they are living in Jesus will be living the way Jesus lived. Not just doing the stuff Jesus did, but LIVING from the same supernatural SOURCE that Jesus lived by. Breathing Heaven’s air with those rivers of alive, alive, alive water gushing from the inner man. That is the Proof that someone is a Christian, that they are truly born of God and walking on that narrow road that so few find.
The New Covenant, the New Deal, was knowing Jesus, being one with Jesus in the same way that the Father and Jesus are one. That oneness is not theory or imagery or parable. It’s Real. And that was what John had seen, had touched and experienced—the Christ, this Connection to Heaven which brought Supernatural life to us. For Real.
So now that you know John was talking about something Supernatural... go to the next story to hear more about what John said about how to know who is living this supernatural life.