A CLEAR PURPOSE

“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.” – John 20:30-31

In high school, I struggled in English class. Every book and story we were forced to read allegedly always had a deeper meaning that we, the teenage reader, were supposed to pick up on. Let’s just say, I rarely picked up on them!

Thankfully, there is no such hidden meaning with John and his gospel. John clearly describes the purpose he wrote this gospel: “so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ…and have life in his name”. Jesus is the purpose and source of eternal life. Earlier in his gospel, John quotes Peter speaking about Jesus: “You have words of eternal life” (John 6:68-69). The whole purpose of John’s gospel is very simple—that the reader may believe in Jesus and have life!

Our salvation through Jesus is no small matter and we should be constantly thankful for it, praising Him who gave it to us freely. Throughout the Bible we are called to rejoice in our salvation (Ps. 13:5, 35:9) and that our names are written in heaven (Luke 10:20, Phil. 4:3, Heb. 12:23).

No matter our circumstances, we are called to take joy in the God of our salvation (Hab. 3:17-18) and continue to pray for restoration of that joy (Ps. 51:12).  Praise God that this salvation is made clear in the book of John, so that we “may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing [we] may have life in His name.”