Today’s devotion is based on the Message: Purpose Revealed (Watch Here)
John 20:30 Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you may believe[b] that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
Yesterday and today I have been enjoying a Pastor’s conference at Camp Shiloh Lutheran Retreat Center near Pittsburg Texas. The theme of the conference centers on marking the 40 years of history of our South Central District of the WELS (Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod.) Our essay today covered the history of the start of congregations in Dallas, Edna and others that were the foundation to the beginning of what we have today as over 7000 souls in our district.
As we discussed the paper, encouragement was given for us as individual congregations to save records and history to preserve the story of God’s grace and the spread of it in the communities around our areas.
One of the questions that was posed was this, “What should we save?” Another person commented, “I have boxes of council minutes and bulletins from every week for years. Do you want all that?
The one giving the essay said, “While the suggestion is to focus on the big events, you can send things in and let the archivist determine what is kept and what is discarded.
Any archivist or historian has to work their way through a lot of information to write the story of history. Every history account has a purpose in writing. (Which reminds me of a college assignment where we had to read five books or so on a part of Russian history and critically analyze the author’s purpose and bias.) Every bit of history that is recorded probably has 5-10 other events that are lost to history.
So I wonder how many signs and wonders Jesus actually did. How many did “not make the cut” of John’s Gospel? We probably will never know unless we remember to ask John when we get to heaven.
However, what is not recorded is really not the point, because even if every sign that Jesus performed WERE recorded, it wouldn’t change anything about him and his teaching. Each one of them had a singular purpose:
So that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God and that by believing you may have life in his name.
John’s purpose was Jesus’ purpose.
Jesus performed signs so people would see the validation to his spoken message and believe he was the promised Messiah.
John recorded these signs so people would have evidence that Jesus was the promised Messiah and the Son of God.
It all had a purpose.
It all has a purpose.
John, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, wrote the things he did so that every one of us could be certain that he was who he said he was – the Messiah, the Son of God.
Our purpose for being on this earth and reading the Words of Jesus are to believe. The Lord Jesus simply wants us to put our faith in him. To trust him to be the Savior of our sin.
There is no greater thing that has been preserved for us to read: the account of Jesus our Savior, so we might read and believe!
Apply: What miracles of Jesus resonate most with you to validate he is the Messiah, the Son of God?
Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank you for not only performing the signs, but ensuring they were recorded in the history of the Gospels so that we too might believe you are the Messiah, the son of God, our Savior. AMEN.