Pray to Begin
Ask: ask the Holy Spirit to open your eyes this week and show you who Jesus really is.
Give thanks: before the world began, before your first breath, God had already planned to come and live among us.
Bring: any doubt you carry about whether Jesus is truly God. Bring it honestly. He is not afraid of your questions.
Today’s Passage: John 1:1–5, 14
John does not start his Gospel with a birth in a stable. He starts before the beginning. He reaches back past Bethlehem, past Abraham, even past the first sunrise. He wants to introduce someone he calls “the Word.” This week, we will spend seven days on one truth: Jesus is fully God. Today we start where John starts: before time.
As you read, hold this: Jesus did not begin at Bethlehem. He has always been God.
Context Echoes of Genesis
“In the beginning” are the same first words as Genesis 1:1. John did that on purpose. Every Jewish reader would hear the echo right away. Genesis opens with God speaking the world into being. John now tells us who was doing the speaking. The Word was not a new idea. He was there at the very first “let there be.”
John 1:1–2 (BSB)
¹ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was with God in the beginning.
Word study "Word": logos (John 1:1)
Greek: λόγος (logos), pronounced LOH-goss. Strong’s G3056.
Logos meant a spoken word, but it meant more than that too. Greek thinkers used it for the reason and order behind everything that exists. It was the plan holding the universe together. John takes that big idea and does something those thinkers never did. He says the Word is not an idea. The Word is a Person. And the Word was already there, before anything was made.
Read verse 1 slowly. It makes three claims, and each one matters. The Word already existed “in the beginning,” before anything else. The Word “was with God.” He is someone, not something. He stands face to face with the Father. And the Word “was God”: fully God, not almost God or like God. John chooses the plainest Greek words he has. He is not softening it. He is stating a fact.
John 1:3–5 (BSB)
³ Through Him all things were made, and without Him nothing was made that has been made. ⁴ In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. ⁵ The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
Only the Maker can make everything. Genesis 1 said, “God said… and it was so.” Now John tells us the Word is the One who did the making. Every star, every mountain, every person you love: made through Him. If Jesus made everything that exists, He cannot be one more thing that was made. He stands on the Maker’s side, not the creature’s side.
Verse 4 says life itself was in Him, not just given by Him. That life became light, shining into a dark world. Verse 5 promises something we needed to hear: the darkness has never once put that light out. Not then, not now.
John has more to tell us here. He tells how the Word came to His own people. Some received Him, and some did not (John 1:6–13). Hold onto that thought. Today our passage jumps ahead to the turn that changes everything.
John 1:14 (BSB)
¹⁴ The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Logos: the Word who was God, next to God, making everything. That same Word put on flesh. He did not stop being God. He also became fully human. He moved in close, among real people, in a real town.
“Made His dwelling” points back to the tabernacle in Exodus. That was the tent where God’s presence lived among His people in the wilderness (Exodus 25:8). Now God’s presence does not live in a tent of cloth. He lives in a body, walking your roads, eating at your tables. John says he saw it with his own eyes. Glory. But also grace and truth, both at once.
Study notes The clearest echo in the New Testament
- This is not John’s idea alone. Other New Testament writers say the same thing about Jesus in their own words.
- Hebrews puts it plainly. The Son carries God’s own glory and holds the whole universe together by His word.
"The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His nature, upholding all things by His powerful word. After He had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high." Hebrews 1:3 (BSB)
Personal Application
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Jesus has always been God. How does that change the way you listen to Him this week?
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What is one doubt about Jesus that you could bring to Him honestly, instead of hiding it?
Pray to Close
The central truth: Jesus is not a created being. He is God, and He came to live among us.
Ask: for eyes to see Jesus as He truly is, not smaller than He is.
Confess: the times you have treated Jesus like a good teacher instead of God Himself.
Give thanks: that the eternal Word (eternal means without beginning or end) chose to move in close to you.
Decision of the day
Today’s decision: I will say one true thing about Jesus out loud today, even quietly: “You are God, and You came for me.”
Worship for Today
What a Beautiful Name · Hillsong Worship
This song opens right where John 1 opens: with the Word who was with God from the start. That Word was hidden inside all of creation. Then He walked among us as a man. The song moves from that eternal truth into simple, glad praise. Sing it tonight as your answer to today’s passage: what a beautiful Name it is, the Name of Jesus.
Listen: