August 10, 2022

Passage Read: John 3-4
Meditation Verse: 3:21

Thought

There is an implication here that those who come to Jesus are those who desire to do right, those who desire righteousness. They are willing to come to the Light, to Jesus, that their deeds, their actions and behaviors may be confirmed as having been done in God. Those who love evil are not willing to come to Jesus because He will expose their sin and they'll have to give it up. But those who love and long for truth and goodness will come to Jesus because they have hungered for righteousness, they have been seeking it and they recognize in Jesus the truth of God. They are not afraid to come to Him because they have little to be ashamed of, and whatever they may have to be ashamed of, they know the Lord will still receive them because they desire righteousness in and for themselves. Anyone who loves righteousness will see the holiness of Christ and be drawn to it. Anyone who loves sin and self-righteousness will be repulsed by Christ, because they know He'll expose their sin and hypocrisy, and they're not willing for that to happen.

Application

So again it is the humble and contrite that come to Christ. They hate their own sin and desire righteousness. They work at conquering their sin and training themselves for righteousness. And they are never satisfied with their progress. They were not self-righteous, but grieve over their own sin as much as they are grieved over the sins of others. And when they hear of Jesus, they recognize the solution to their dilemma: Jesus forgives their sin and sinfulness, and He has the power and the truth they seek, that they would go on the right way and have strength to succeed. Those who truly come to a saving knowledge of and faith in Christ are those who loved righteousness even before they knew of Him. They recognize that Jesus is what they've been seeking all along, and He is the way to what they've been longing for. A further implication is that those who seem to come to Christ but hate to hear His righteous truth, hate the light He sheds on their deeds, these have not actually believed in Him but rather see religion as a means to selfish ends. They seek to distort Jesus' Word so as to remain comfortable in their sin while seeming to be close to Him. These are the kind of people that Jesus will not acknowledge as belonging to Him. A love for holiness and righteousness and a drive to attain them are the marks of genuine believers; anyone who doesn't strive for Jesus' kind of holiness and call others to the same is not truly saved.