Come and See

June 26, 2014

Come and See

“Jesus looked around and saw them following. “What do you want?” he asked them. They replied, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?” “Come and see,” he said.”

John 1:38-39a

Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the men who spent the afternoon with Jesus.  Andrew then went to his brother, Simon, and told him, “We have found the Messiah” (John 1:40). John the Baptist had already pointed out Jesus to Andrew, as the Lamb of God, but something happened to Andrew that afternoon with Jesus that forever changed him. I have long been intrigued by the simple dialog of this passage: “Where are you staying? “Come and see.”

Yesterday something jogged my memory back to the events of eighteen months ago with my heart attack and bypass surgery. I was amazed at how my very acute awareness of everything in my environment has slowly faded in the ensuing months. That’s pretty typical of our human experience of life, but it was not typical for Jesus’ earthly experience. Every day his senses were fully aware of his surroundings and of those around him. Every day he was fully aware of his Father’s love for him. Every day he was fully engaged in his Messianic mission. We may be tempted to rest in our weakened human state, but that is not God’s will for us. The Holy Spirit is fully engaged in His ministry of forming Christ within us, to the end that every day our senses will be fully aware of our surroundings. Every day we will be fully aware of Abba’s love for us, and every day we will be fully engaged in the ministry God has assigned to us. How?

By having our own simple dialog with Jesus: “Where are you staying? “Come and see.” The key is on staying. I am finding that there is a directly proportional relationship between the quantity and quality of time I spend with Jesus and the acuteness of my awareness of my environment. One thing I greatly regret about my thirty-two years of pastoral ministry was the absence of periodic sabbaticals of time alone to be with Jesus. Not practicing that spiritual discipline then, makes it difficult now, when I have more freedom to incorporate this discipline in my life. Even so, my hearts longs for more of Jesus, and I trust the Holy Spirit will help me to press on so “that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:12b NASB).

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188.