The Gospel of John | Day Thirteen

By: Brittany Green | Bowed

DAY THIRTEEN is up on the blog! 

"Through all the messages I've ever sat through, there is one in particular that really shook me out of my good-girl mentality. It rocked my world into joyful obedience! I had been praying about my church's student mission trip to South Africa. I couldn't figure out if God was leading me to go or if my selfish desires were getting in the way. I wanted the Lord to give me a sign. I wanted the peace of: 'this is the way, walk in it.' 

One night at church, I was listening to my high school  pastor as he preached on Mary, the mother of Jesus. He talked about her great faith and obedience! When she was my age, Mary was told she was pregnant with the Savior of the world. She would go on to deliver the author of the Good News! Yet, she was mocked and rejected by society because she was unmarried. Her husband-to-be could have walked away, turned her in, and ridiculed her publicly. However, she followed the Lord wholly. 

If Mary--a girl close to my age--could follow the Lord's calling with nothing but the words of a talking angel, what was holding me back to serving Jesus across the world?! As our pastor was talking, I broke down in tears! The Lord answered my prayers by using the story of Mary as a sign and reminder to obey Him--even when it's tough. Especially this Easter season, I'm realizing there is nothing more rewarding than fully following Jesus and telling others about His great love!" 

Kendall, Sophomore  

The next five days will be the road to Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. Today we’re looking at when Jesus gets arrested.

Read John 18:1-14.

 I’ve read and heard this story a thousand times and three things stand out to me:

  1. It never ceases to amaze me that Judas could betray Jesus after having seen and heard all that Jesus did and taught.
  2. I love Peter’s impulsiveness and passion. He cut off a guy’s ear! Jesus is all calm, He’s told the disciples what’s about to happen and Peter still does his own thing. And the crazy thing is that Jesus casually just picks up the ear and puts it back on the guy’s head. I’m sure there was some screaming and shock that the author left out. Probably even a few glances between Jesus and Peter and Peter and the other disciples. But that’s just my head filling in the gaps.
  3. I’ve never noticed before verses 4-6. This is where we’re going to land today. 

Go back and look at these verses.

You may have noticed that throughout the book of John, Jesus says the words, “I AM” several times. This is significant. If we skim back over to Exodus 3:14, we see God revealing His name to Moses. This is the first time in Scripture that God says His own name. It translates in Hebrew to Yahweh (well, technically YHWH, but since Hebrew doesn’t have vowels and we can’t pronounce that, God’s people filled in some vowels). In the Jewish culture, it is blasphemous to claim to be God, same for us today. However, Jesus claims this several times. This is part of the reason that the Pharisees are having Jesus arrested.

Why do you think that it is significant that Jesus answered with “I am He” in verse 6?


Why is it significant that the people fell down when He said this?


I mean, how cool is God? He’s going to be glorified whether people want to praise Him or not. The people coming to betray and arrest Jesus fell down at His feet. Jesus holds ultimate power over His enemies because he is the one who bears the divine Name.


Even Jesus’ enemies fall at His feet, so how then should we respond as people who love and believe in Him?


Spend some time today bowing at His feet.