Try reading the Book of John in this way …

John waited close to 80 years after Jesus had ascended to Heaven before he wrote the Book of John.

One might wonder why?

Why would he not write it as soon as Jesus left? In that way, one would assume that he would have more clarity to recall what Jesus had said and done.

But here’s the thing – John wrote from a life of having lived in experience of that which Jesus taught! He wrote about what he had, “handled with his own hands, seen with his own eyes, and heard with the ears of his heart,” (1 John 1:1).

John was not going to tell about things he had learned second hand. But about things which had been born in him, and had come Alive in him!

He was going to share from the depths of having walked with Christ in the Spirit, and having become the living embodiment of His Life. Every Word and teaching having found root in his own heart, and having sprung up to grow into the full harvest of revelation, by becoming the very reality thereof in his life!

John’s Gospel does not tell a story, nor does it only give us an ‘account’ – It breathes with the Breathe of Life – It is Spirit-Word that has found its way into the soil of a man, whose heart was fully surrendered to God, and it produced through him the same Life that would become a Light, drawing others to the same altar of surrender!

John’s Gospel is a living account of a man who had followed His Master for his entire life, who had tasted the Glory of the world to come, and who had captured it in a Heavenly vocabulary as a love-story to those who, as he, are Lovesick for His Master!

~ Johann van der Hoven

Johann van der Hoven is in South Africa. He has been serving the Lord in ministry since 1991 and has hosted numerous apostolic revival meetings in South Africa and in South America. He also currently pioneers a organic church planting movement across South Africa. For more information about him and his ministry visit www.sonsofsovereignty.com or Revival.

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