Click here for an explanation about this series: "Finding Jesus Christ."
I had planned to delve into the Gospel of John right away, but I just realized there is something important I need to mention first. Before you embark on a venture as serious as finding Jesus Christ, it is critical that you first look inward ask yourself why you want to bother. I'm talking about motives. What's your reason? What brings you here?
As we begin looking at this Gospel account of Jesus' life and ministry, we will soon discover that Jesus weighed the motives of those who sought him out. He did not waste time with people who came to him with an agenda. That is, people who only wanted him to do stuff for them. Jesus wanted people to seek him to learn the truth about who he was. He wanted them to follow him only because they believed he was the person he claimed to be.
Seeking the truth is different from wanting to be right. It is different from wanting to prove someone else wrong, such as your mother, or the religious right, or your former pastor. It is also far different from wanting to clean up your life or feel better about yourself. If you decide to follow Jesus your life may or may not get cleaned up, and I can guarantee that you certainly aren't going to feel better about yourself.
The only good reason to seek Jesus Christ is that you want to know the truth about him. Desire for the truth is like an ache inside of you. You think it will go away over time but instead it just grows. Maybe it grows because you're getting sick of everything: of your life, of most of the people in your life, and maybe even of yourself. You don't dare tell anybody, of course. But you are getting to the place where you want some answers to the questions that are making you ache, and you no longer care about where it leads you or what the consequences will be or what you may suffer as result of finding out those answers.
You want to know with all your heart: Is Jesus the "answer" that I'm looking for?
