John 1:1-14
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.
Colossians 1:15-23
The Supremacy of the Son of God
15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
21 Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. 22 But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— 23 if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.
Acts 17:24-31
God is Not Far from Any of Us
24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
29 “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. 30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed.He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”
John 4:24
God is Spirit
24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.
John 6:25-70
Jesus the Bread of Life
25 When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”
26 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. 27 Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”
28 Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”
29 Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
30 So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? 31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”
32 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
34 “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.”
35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. 36 But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. 37 All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40 For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”
41 At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”42 They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?”
43 “Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. 44 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. 45 It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. 46 No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. 47 Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. 50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
52 Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
53 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. 57 Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” 59 He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.
Many Disciples Desert Jesus
60 On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”
61 Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? 62 Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! 63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life. 64 Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. 65 He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.”
66 From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.
67 “You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve.
68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69 We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.”
70 Then Jesus replied, “Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil!” 71 (He meant Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, who, though one of the Twelve, was later to betray him.)
Job 38:1-4
The Lord Speaks
1 Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said:
2 “Who is this that obscures my plans
with words without knowledge?
3 Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.
4 “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
John 3:1-15
Jesus Teaches Nicodemus
3 Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2 He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”
4 “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”
5 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
9 “How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.
10 “You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? 11 Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. 12 I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? 13 No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. 14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”
John 20:24-29
Jesus Appears to Thomas
24 Now Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”
But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”
26 A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
28 Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
29 Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
Luke 18:31-34
Jesus Predicts His Death a Third Time
31 Jesus took the Twelve aside and told them, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. 32 He will be delivered over to the Gentiles. They will mock him, insult him and spit on him; 33 they will flog him and kill him. On the third day he will rise again.”
34 The disciples did not understand any of this. Its meaning was hidden from them, and they did not know what he was talking about.
John 11:25-26
Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life
25 Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?"
Acts 1:1-11
Jesus Taken Up Into Heaven
1 In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach 2 until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. 3 After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. 4 On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about.5 For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”
6 Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”
7 He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
9 After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.
10 They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. 11 “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”
Jesus teaches us the eternities throughout the four gospels...And He is the best evidence we have for God existing...Jesus and God have been together since in the beginning...But because He and God have been here since the beginning, it also creates a problem in trying to explain the Two to other people, when they do not believe...
As we read the four gospels and the Books of the New Testament, we quickly learn that no one knew God or trusted Him more than Jesus did...No one followed the will of God better than Jesus...And the four gospels are the foundation for believing in God...And the gospels are all about Jesus...So when I read or hear a non-believer or atheist ask for God to be proven, I think we first must point to the four gospels and the main character in the four gospels...But one has to believe the four gospels are true, before they can believe in God and Jesus...
Usually the non-believer wants physical evidence that God exists...The non-believer would like a miracle, a current-modern one...They want us to point to that Someone who exists or Someone they can actually feel and touch and say yeah, that's Him, that's God...Or they want to believe, and have a modern miracle happen before their eyes -then they will believe...But would seeing Someone, who I might say is God, or One doing a lot of miracles prove to the skeptic that God exists or that that is God...The Pharisees and the Sanhedrin and the High Priest heard of and many saw Jesus' miracles, yet they did not believe that He was the Son of the Blessed One, the Son of God...One also has to believe in miracles to believe in Jesus...Even some of Jesus closer followers deserted Him, when He told them that He is the Bread of Life...Many of these people could have touched Him, and many would have seen His miracles but they left Him anyway...They could no longer believe Him...What He was teaching them is hard to understand...It is like when God came out of the storm to talk to Job...He ask Job where he was when He laid the earth's foundation...This is really a very good question...But it is even a better point that He was making, and it is about eternity...We did not exist in the beginning...We do not understand eternity past or future...We do not know future...So how can we humanly show others that there is a God, who is from eternity...We need a better understanding of the eternal, to explain God...Now Jesus was with God in the beginning...Since our understanding is limited, we cannot prove that God is near us, knows all, and He cannot be described in objects of gold or silver or stone and humanly ways...Nor can He be completely explained in humanly ways, for it is He who gives us life and breath and everything else, as St. Paul tells us...He is very complex...We are imperfect people who sin, trying to describe and explain to others about One who is Absolutely Moral, and is total Absolute Truth...We are human, trying to explain Someone who is divine and eternal...We cannot explain Someone who is Perfect, Divine, and Eternal, because we are not...It goes a little beyond the reach of our human mind and our human way of thinking to believe in divine, perfection and eternal things...
So then it takes a Divine One to explain God...And Jesus tries to explain Him to us throughout the four gospels -as well as who He is and where He came from....And even though He is a Man (if it fair to call Him a Man) we find these things hard to understand...Just as Jesus told Nicodemus while teaching him one night, how can he understand heavenly things, when we don't know and understand simple things like where the winds starts and ends, and where it is going...The Spirit is like the wind...Can Nicodemus or any of us understand these things?...And yet, the wind is an earthly thing, and things of the Spirit and heaven are divine and heavenly things...The Divine and heavenly are much, much harder to understand than the wind...And yet Nicodemus knew Jesus was sent from God...Nicodemus' very words are, “Rabbi, we know that You are a Teacher who has come from God...For no one could perform the signs You are doing if God were not with Him.”...
God is Spirit...So describing and explaining the Spiritual takes the form of faith...And that is the way God wants it...Otherwise He would change it...Faith is necessary in believing in Him...He did send His Son to us, to better explain these things about the eternities and about Him...So we can point our fingers to Jesus, if we are skeptical and need Someone who lived as the great example of mankind, died, and then resurrected and came back to life...But believing that Jesus lived, died, and came back to life also takes faith...And I think the biggest obstacle to believe is maybe His resurrection...
God sent us Jesus to better understand the Divine and His Father...He spoke God's mind and God's Word...He came and dwelt on earth, did many good things, healed many, forgave many, and did many miracles, and then He died on the cross...He died on the cross for us and our sins...The problem with many non-believers they stop at this last sentences, last word...He died...But after His death, He resurrected...Jesus said, "Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in Him."...We didn't get to see Him being lifted up by God, but it happened...And we are blessed if we believe this...He told His own Disciple Thomas after His death when he doubted and would not believe, “Put your finger here; see My hands...Reach out your hand and put it into My side....Stop doubting and believe.”...Thomas said to Him, “My Lord and My God!”...Then Jesus told him something very important, “Because you have seen Me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”...
It is very, very difficult to stop doubting and believe...Even for a Disciple of three years, it was difficult for St. Thomas to believe that Jesus had resurrected from the dead...It took faith to do this...
Jesus is THE great evidence of God...He confirmed that He is the Messiah by His miracles and His resurrection...Miracles and the resurrection transcend the laws of nature...The resurrection miracle stands out...Jesus would be not who He says He is, if He did not raise from the dead...And to believe that Jesus could do miracles and then to further believe He resurrected goes a little beyond our human mind and our human way of thinking about things, much like us understanding the wind story given to Nicodemus...To believe in the story of the resurrection, one has to believe in the gospels...Jesus three times talked about His death and His resurrection...At one point Jesus took the Twelve aside and told them, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled...He will be delivered over to the Gentiles...They will mock Him, insult Him and spit on Him; they will flog Him and kill Him...On the third day He will rise again.”...The Old Testament prophecies were fulfilled by Jesus...But even the disciples did not understand any of this...Its meaning was still hidden from them, and they did not know what he was talking about...They only knew what this meant when He rose from the dead...Only then did they believe...And the Disciples cannot be charged with a lot of courage or imagination about His resurrection...They fled from Him on the night of His arrest, and only gained strength from His resurrection, after seeing Him...After His death on the cross and this suffering, He presented Himself to them and gave them many convincing proofs that He was alive...He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God...On one occasion, while He was eating with them, He gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift My Father promised, which you have heard Me speak about...For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”...
The Disciples now believed...It took faith and belief in His returning from the dead for them to believe...