Born Of God

John 1: 1-18

The Word Became Flesh

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was with God in the beginning. ³ Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. ⁴ In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

⁶ There was a man sent from God whose name was John. ⁷ He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. ⁸ He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

⁹ The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. ¹⁰ He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. ¹¹ He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. ¹² Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— ¹³ children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

¹⁴ The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

¹⁵ (John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”) ¹⁶ Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. ¹⁷ For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. ¹⁸ No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.

We end the Christmas Octave with the Prologue of St. John, a beautiful, profound reflection and summary of what we have been celebrating for the past week. "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us" (Jn 1: 1-14) . It seems we cannot fully comprehend this, but yet it is a fact, one for which we owe our lives, for it is the root and foundation of our salvation...Not only did God become one of us, but also  was "not received", willingly giving up his life on the cross, as we know, that we might have LIFE...ETERNAL LIFE! As we grow in deeper understanding and appreciation of this, our love and our actions move from self-centeredness to "other-centerdness" and we not only bear our own hardships with a smile, we seek to help others bear theirs, as certainly Jesus did. 

 As we look back over this difficult year, may we see how God was schooling us toward laying down our lives for others, thank him for this blessing and asking him that we may not pull back from our call to be born again as "children of light."  

Bro. Rene