Have you ever received an invitation to something very special? Like a birthday party, a prestigious school, or a high-leveled meeting? Didn’t it make you feel so good? On the other hand, have you ever gotten a rejection letter? Maybe you weren’t old enough, or smart enough, or strong enough. Maybe your credit score was too low. Maybe your driver’s license expired, or you forgot your admission ticket! Worst of all, maybe you were the wrong race or ethnicity. In any case, didn’t that rejection letter make you feel so bad?

When you get rebuked, how do you react? It’s hard, right? Do you talk back? Do you immediately find ways to justify yourself and blame the one who rebukes you? Or do you actually listen? Not many people do. Today Jesus rebukes people for the way they were running God’s house. And he’s actually rebuking us, too. But his words and actions in this passage are hard to understand. Is Jesus endorsing violent protest? Is he attacking religious institutions and buildings? No. He says: “Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” What does he mean? Why is he saying this? How can we really accept it? May God open our hearts and speak to us through his living word today.

John has already taught in this letter that we should love one another (3:11–24). In today’s passage he develops this further. Four times he uses the expression “love one another” (7,11,12,21), and he uses the word “love” a total of 27 times in these 15 verses. On the surface it seems he’s just repeating himself. But actually John is developing how essential love is in being a real Christian, and along the way he addresses the honest struggles we all may have with both accepting and practicing God’s love. As some of us may have experienced, loving people sounds good, but it may be the hardest thing in the world to really do.

Are you “woke”? Some people are just clueless, living in their own bubble, with their own self-centered understandings, misunderstandings and prejudices, criticizing and judging. But being “woke” means being socially or culturally aware of what’s really going on in the world. It’s similar to the word “enlightened.” It means to live beyond the mundane repetitions of life, just surviving. It’s to live with an open mind, wisdom, and a deep understanding of people. Throughout history people have sought enlightenment: some, through deep meditation; others, through hallucinogenic drugs or exotic experiences.

Have you ever been around someone who has no clue that they’ve done wrong? Or someone who gets upset when they make just a small mistake? On one hand, we might have no awareness of our sin, or on the other, a heightened awareness of it that leaves us devastated. In order to feel better, people try to explain away guilt as something that’s socially conditioned. Some resent the church for manipulating people by playing on their guilt. They try to deny that there’s any such thing as sin, that we should all just be “doing what comes naturally.” But in real life, wrongdoing occurs all the time, right? Lying. Stealing. Hurting others. They come natural to us, but people everywhere would agree these things are wrong. So it’s obvious there’s something in our human condition that makes us prone to sin.

It’s complicated, fascinating, and so deep, one of the most important questions in life: “Who are you?” Are we defined by our race, or gender, or looks, or economic status, by what we’re good at, what we do, what people think of us? Sometimes we ask somebody we’ve never met before, “So, who are you?”, but we’re not really interested. Sometimes we find out something about someone we thought we knew, and we ask, “Who are you?” What’s even more disturbing is when we realize we don’t really know ourselves. Things or people are stripped away, and we find ourselves lost. It seems that knowing who we really are is related to knowing what we’re doing in life. And then sometimes we’re eagerly trying to get to know the wrong person! We try so hard and find out it was all really misdirected. Has that ever happened to you? Who do you want to know? In today’s passage we see people repeatedly asking John the Baptist, “Who are you?” He knows, but he doesn’t want to talk about it. Instead, he turns people’s attention to someone else. He wants them to get to know Jesus. Putting it all together, knowing Jesus, it seems, enables us to get to know ourselves, and it enables us to get to know what we should be doing in life. Through this Bible study may God open our hearts and speak to us personally.

Have you ever heard of the movie, Invasion of the Body Snatchers? It’s a creepy science fiction movie where aliens invade the earth in pods. It speaks generally to a universal fear of alien invasion. The aliens are usually foreigners. Throughout history people have invaded other people’s territories, usually through war, and their purpose was to conquer and dominate. Since ancient times spies have also secretly invaded other countries. They dressed, acted, spoke and lived like the local people to collect information. There’s a famous TV show called The Americans about two Russian spies who act like an American married couple, but who’re really working for the Russian government. People are still afraid of terror cells planted in our country, people who fake like they’re Americans but whose real motive is to destroy us. In today’s passage we learn of another kind of “invasion.” God himself “invaded” our world when he came in the person of Jesus. But it wasn’t to steal from or take advantage of or dominate or hurt us in any way—it was to restore us to himself. As we think about today’s words may God open our hearts and speak to us personally.

“Can you believe it?” We say this as an exclamation when something incredible happens. Like during a freak-of-nature event. Or when an unlikely person finally has a change of heart. And we say, “Can you believe it?” Often, skeptical people say, “No! I can’t believe it!” In the first five verses John has told us some incredible things about Jesus. But for these things to have any effect on us, we have to believe. In 21 chapters of John the author repeats the word “believe” almost 100 times. So in this part of his prologue he introduces us to how God helps us believe, and how only those who believe can become children of God. May God open our hearts and speak to us through his living word today.

Have you ever thought about the question, “Who’s the greatest?” People love that question! The greatest leader? The greatest thinker? The greatest innovator? The greatest artist or musician or athlete? The most handsome man? The most beautiful woman? The richest person in the world? We get fascinated by who these people might be. But at a more personal level, each of us likes to think that I’m self-sufficient, that I don’t need anybody else, that secretly, I’m better than others, that honestly, I’m the only person that really matters. It’s also known as pride. We easily can get obsessed with ourselves. Out of this tendency there’s an increasing tribalism in our society today. Whether we’re liberals or conservatives, whites or blacks, Hispanics or crazy rich Asians, techies or artists, bikers or jocks, people love to think that their kind of people are best, the only ones who’re right. It’s true today, and it was also true at the time John wrote his Gospel. The Roman Empire was filled with all kinds of cultures and religions, and everybody thought theirs was superior. So John begins this book by writing about someone who really is the greatest, who really is best. Knowing this unique person has a huge impact on us. It humbles us to our core. It changes the way we look at the world, at people and at ourselves. Knowing this unique person actually gives us life, and light, and victory over darkness. Though we’re all so different, knowing him makes us one. As we meditate on who this person is, may God open our hearts and speak to us personally.