April 7 | John 20:30-31

Pam Mann
5 days ago
3 min read

DAILY READING

REFLECTION

Life in His Name

By Pam Mann

John writes about only seven signs. Clearly, he’s carefully chosen which of Jesus’ many miracles to describe. Highlighting of the ones that happened on a Sabbath helps us understand why the religious leaders get so agitated against the long-awaited Messiah. John focuses on the principal players in each event but think of all the others whose lives were transformed by encountering Jesus. For every sign that John describes, consider all the eyewitnesses or the friends and family of those healed. What amazing testimonies await us in heaven! We will hear from those who drank the fine wine that had once been water, from those who ate bread that Jesus multiplied, from those who believed after Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well, from those who regularly saw the man born blind whom Jesus made see, and those who were neighbors of Lazarus, resurrected from his grave!

And that’s not all! John warns us that we don’t even know the half of what Jesus did! The good news is that what John wrote is enough. Read the book of John. Ponder its import. Consider who Jesus is. John has written enough that we can know Jesus and believe in Him.

If we read the book of John, we can know the Messiah of whom the ancient prophets wrote. We can know the Son of God, who was the Word in the beginning, who took on human flesh and became man, who lived a sinless life, working miracles and announcing the kingdom of God, and who died in our place that we might live.

If we read the book of John, we can meet the living Christ and know the power of His resurrection. We can believe. Believing, we can have life in His name.

The stories which John highlights are enough to show us who Jesus is. I have an English student from a north African country where access to the Gospel is government restricted. Alim (not his real name) couldn’t get a Bible in his home country, but he had the Jesus film in his language. Last month, he played a clip for me on his phone during an ESL class break-

time. In part-broken-English, part-French, Alim excitedly explained that Jesus can make the blind see and raise the dead! I was stunned and humbled by Alim’s zeal when he had so little available to him to know Jesus. Alim had enough to want more of life in Christ’s name.

Life in Christ’s name can be our present and our future. Jesus says to us, as He said to the woman in John 8, “Go and sin no more.” Those voices which were condemning you have been silenced by Jesus. The promised comforter awaits to empower your new life in Christ’s name. His mercy is new every morning. In His life, death, and resurrection, Christ has won for you something you can experience this day: life in His name!

PRAYER

Thank you, Jesus, for the book of John that declares who You are and who we can be as we live in Your name.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PAM MANN

I first joined UALC when my husband (then my fiancé) and I were college students involved in youth ministry. God has used UALC to nurture our family’s faith, even in our years outside the U.S. I’ve participated in UALC ministries with kids, art, prayer, exercise, ESL, and Bible teaching. I do all the fun church things.