Friday | John 12-21

John 12-21

Today is Good Friday. We call it Good Friday because Jesus died on the cross and paid the debt for our sin, and that is good! It is also the day Jesus was betrayed by one of his closest friends, accused and tried before a multitude, stripped naked for all to see, tortured and beaten, forced to carry a log through jeering and spitting haters, nailed to a cross, forced to hang from his own ripping flesh for hours, and killed to the amusement of many. Not so good. 

We forget sometimes of the enormity of what Jesus suffered this day. Not only that, we forget the foreknowledge Jesus possessed of these events. He knew what was coming before this day arrived. Yet Jesus still did it. For you. For me. For a world that despised Him. 

John focuses his writing on the personal love Jesus had for all of us. Jesus was a personal and relational man because God is personal and relational. John focuses on what Jesus did leading up to Good Friday. He comforted, encouraged, prayed for, and loved. Knowing the horror He was about to suffer, Jesus loved. 

Today we remember what Christ did. We remember the sacrifice, but also the love God has for you. Remember the way Jesus loved in Scripture and remember the way He loves you now. God is no less personal and relational now than Jesus was then. Spend time today worshipping God for all He is and all the love He pours out on you daily. 

Jesus prayed for us before his arrest (John 17:25-26), “Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”