Look inside this book.Where the Bush is Burning: A Daily Devotional by [Thomas Tice]

Tag: John 8
Before Abraham Was

Before Abraham Was

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Jesus said to them, Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM. 

John 8:58 

Christ is eternal. As He spoke with His enemies regarding His identity, they challenged Him about His remark, ‘Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.’  They said, ‘You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?’ He replied with the words of our text, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.’ The title He uses, in reference to Himself is the name I AM. This was the name by which He identified Himself in Exodus 3 as He spoke with Moses at the burning bush. It is the name of the Self-Existent One. By logical inference this means He is eternal. Micah, the Old Testament prophet, speaking of Christ said of Him, ‘Whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting.’ At a certain point in history Christ took unto Himself a true body and a reasonable soul, but that was by no means the beginning of His existence. Because He is the Son of God, the Second Member of the Trinity, He is as eternal as the Father and the Spirit. Therefore, when His enemies challenged Him, He could say, ‘Before  Abraham was, I AM.’ The man we call Jesus is the essential, eternal Son of the Living God.  

Our Gracious God and our Savior, 
we rejoice that You are from eternity. 
We praise You that from everlasting to everlasting, 
You are God.  

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning
Slave Or Free?

Slave Or Free?

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Jesus answered them, Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.  

John 8:34-36 

Are we slaves or are we free? In ancient society people were either slaves or free. It was one of the great divisions that existed at the time. When Christ spoke with the people before Him in the passage from which our text derives, He said, ‘You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’ To that, they responded with, ‘We are Abraham’s descendants, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can You say, You will be made free?’ Our text is His response to that question. He is speaking of the spiritual enslavement of sin, which has physical, mental, social and spiritual ramifications. Sin is a practical outplay of extreme selfishness. It is the polar opposite of the selfless life. If we steal, we selfishly appropriate for ourselves what belongs to someone else. We do damage to them to satisfy ourselves. Other sins are similar. They damage someone else to satisfy us. If we live life like this, we serve whatever activity feeds those selfish desires. Christ says that the only way to become free from that is to know the truth. He is the embodiment of truth. To know Christ is to know the truth and knowing Him is what makes us genuinely free. 

Our Great God and our Savior, 
we rejoice that You deliver us from ourselves and from our sin. 
We praise You that You  
bring us out of slavery unto freedom.  

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

Walking In Freedom

Walking In Freedom

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And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. 

John 8:32 

And I will walk at liberty, for I seek Your precepts.  

Psalm 119:45

If knowing the truth makes us free, how does that freedom look? The second portion of our text connects it with the precepts of the word of God. If we begin that discussion, we must include the role of Christ and of the Holy Spirit in how they lead us to exercise our freedom in relation to God’s word. The reason we must include Christ is that to exclude Him, or even merely pay lip service to Him will land us in a morass of letter-of-the-law performance devoid of true spirituality. Barren conformity to a checklist of religious exercises is the way of the Pharisee. Christ gives freedom from the slavery of sin but does not then place us into the bondage of letter-of-the-law obedience. The Holy Spirit renews us in the whole person after the image of Christ and enables us to die more and more unto sin. The pursuit of the precepts of God, yield likeness to Christ, which is true freedom. Christ is the answer to the question of how we shall live.  

Our Gracious Master and our God, 
we rejoice that You are the Living Word of God. 
We praise You that the written Word 
always brings us to You.  

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

Free Indeed

Free Indeed

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And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. 

John 8:32  

Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed. 

John 8:36

How does knowing the truth make us free? The second portion of our text answers that question. As Christ is speaking to the Jews who believed in Him, He says. ‘You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.’ After that, He explains that to commit sin is to be a slave to it and that such a person is not a member of the household of God as a son of the family would be. He follows that explanation with the second portion of our text. Thus He ties knowledge of the truth and freedom to Himself. In the most straightforward manner He links these things together. If we want to know truth, we must know Christ. If we know Christ, Who is the embodiment of truth, we will be free. This is true freedom, and not some delusion. Many people believe that freedom means being able to indulge in what satisfies our natural desires. Christ frees us from the addictive dependency we have on those things. We become no longer slaves to those things. Instead, He makes us free with our knowledge of Him which He equates with our knowledge of the truth. We are then free indeed.  

Gracious God and our Savior, 
we rejoice that You are the Way, the Truth and the Life. 
We praise You that, as we know You, 
You make us truly free.  

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

Knowing The Truth

Knowing The Truth

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And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. 

John 8:32 

Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. 

John 14:6 

What is truth? Pilate asked Christ this question. It is a question for the ages. What is truth and how can we know it? In the first portion of our text Christ makes a statement which is captivating because He asserts, first, that there is truth, second that we can know truth, and third that knowing that truth will set us free. This is valuable for us in the light of the second portion of our text where He says, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life.’ If we lay these two statements side by side, we arrive at the conclusion that if we want to know the truth, we must know Christ. Herein lies the path to freedom. He follows shortly after the first statement of our text with, ‘Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.’ Christ makes the connection for us between knowing the truth, knowing Him, and the freedom He gives to us. This encourages us to contemplate Him constantly and consistently. As we dwell upon Him, we learn what is important in life, in death, and for eternity. What is important to Him becomes our values. He makes us free.  

Our Gracious God and our Savior, 
we rejoice that You have revealed Yourself to us. 
We praise You that, by knowing You, 
we come to know truth.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

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