John

A relationship with God—Christian, as we call it—should be a constant, enjoyable experience. Church should be exciting and enjoyable, and reading the Bible should be equally enjoyable. All too often, we call on God when we can’t manage circumstances ourselves. All too often, we read the Bible and look at it as more of a history book—events that certain people did at certain times—but we don’t put the pieces together.
If people really knew what God is like, they would love life with Him so much more. We wouldn’t be able to build enough churches to house everyone who wanted to attend!
Almost anybody who reads the Bible regularly will tell you of a similar experience, where they come across a passage they will swear wasn’t there before. If they were to highlight the passage, however, and return to it after some time, it wouldn’t be as meaningful or stand out as much as it once did. Often, they can’t even tell you what the experience was but will continue to find new passages that have a similar impact.
This is because the Bible is written to be constantly relevant. If you dig down, you will see that each passage that was carefully chosen boils down to relatable human behavior, but that’s how it should be for us. God should be like our best friend, and when we come across something relevant, the first thing we think of is that we want to share it with that best friend. When God is allowed to be our best friend, we have an exciting relationship of sharing and caring. When we go to church, we should get the same experience. When we read His book, we should experience an excitement that is unparalleled with any other—but we generally don’t.
It’s because we need to stop seeing it as just a recording of history and start seeing ourselves and others in every line of text. Then, it becomes an exciting challenge to find daily treasures of common human behavior in its pages and how best to deal with them.
This book shows us just that . It takes a few chapters of John’s Gospel and reflects the human character that’s demonstrated—a human character that was present at the time and remains such today … and tomorrow.
Based on an honest look at scripture, coupled with an honest look at ourselves, this book will break down the walls we commonly put up to defend ourselves, without realizing we are only defending ourselves from the very God who wants to be our friend. If we are doing it right, we have no need to defend ourselves.
The truth, most often, is a bitter pill to swallow but is always the best medicine, whatever our circumstances. When we sugar-coat the pill to make it easier to swallow, all we do is pollute our bodies and minds with the sugar and never notice the truth we so desperately need.
Why do we eat cheap fast food when God gives us five-star meals? We should be unwilling to accept anything but God’s absolute best for us. We know that our bodies feel better when we eat nutritious food, in the same way our spirit feels better when it gets better food!
Too many Christians are good churchgoers who are spoon-fed the Word of God but, in a short time, don’t remember what they ate or how it tasted. When there is no way to apply it, it goes away quickly.
Being creatures of habit, we quickly go back to them. Oh, how comfortable our comfort zones are!
So many people have milk-level faith and understanding. They find a comfort level and are unwilling to go past it, believing they have enough. In reality, these are milk duds. Milk is for the new Christian but should always lead to consuming bread, then meat, as we grow and expand our understanding every day.
If we are willing to take a hard look at ourselves without constantly justifying our every thought and action, we can live that fulfilling life that scripture promises us but so few of us actually find.
It’s no wonder people lose their faith in God’s ability to do anything. No wonder we turn to ourselves for almost everything and only turn to God when we think it’s bigger than us. This human behavior was introduced to humankind from the tree of knowledge. From the very beginning, God never intended for us to suffer, but we know who did intend it. Life leads us away from God, as scripture keeps telling us. Only when we cut through the lies and deal with absolute truth will we find the promises of God in this world.
This book is written to encourage people to want to read scripture because of what they will find in its pages. It’s not simply a duty to read scripture; it should be an absolute pleasure!
The basic format is milk first, to provide a basic level of understanding and application, followed by bread and then meat. As understanding develops, so does the level to which we can dig. This book is written to show that anyone can build the foundation, followed by the building blocks of understanding.
The goal is to ultimately understand ourselves and others and learn to be honest about who we are and how we behave and understand. If you stay at milk, you will never enjoy bread or meat, which means you will never be satisfied. You will miss so much joy by finding a comfort zone and staying within it.
There are no limits and no ends to God and scripture so why would we want to limit ourselves?