On having a bloody lip and reading the Gospel according to John.

Notice a trend here? It seems that my past two posts have been about pain and reading the bible. Hopefully the former will stop and the latter continue.

Last night was Junior High, and during one of the games I got to play the unfortunate role of Satan, chasing the kids. At one point, when I was about to brutally tackle one kid, his best friend, in a valiant effort to protect his friend, jumped between us.

His head hit my lower jaw at full force, and one of my upper teeth went about a quarter of an inch into my lower lip. Then we fell into the garden.... and I spent the rest of the evening spitting out blood. Yum.

And now for something completely different (again)...

For the past three years I have been consistently drawn to study the Holy Spirit, and notably I have spent the past two summers doing in depth study. It looks like this trend may continue...

Last night I was studying John 14 and 16... and one particular statement hit me pretty hard (in the bawling my eyes out, jumping up and down kind of way):

"I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you." (John 14:20)

That is such an amazing verse. At first it may seem redundant, " you are in me, and I am in you," but this is actually saying two different (and awesome!) things. Here is the logic:

• Jesus is in the Father (because of the trinity)
• We are in Jesus, if we "believe in our hearts and confess with our lips that Jesus is Lord" (Romans 10:9). Therefore we have access to the father at any time, unlike the Jews who needed to make animal sacrifices.
• Jesus is in us (in the context of the chapter this is referring to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit).

So that's awesome...! Not only are we saved from our sins, but we also have complete access to the Father... and on top of that we have the Holy Spirit in(!) us, giving us conviction, assurance, and power!

This is truly the greatest thing in the universe, no exaggeration, and I wish that everyone knew this. Hopefully via this post a few more will... and hopefully those of you who do know this will rejoice in it.