📊 John 10:10 | The Man Jesus Healed

together with

Happy Tuesday, {{first_name| everyone}}!

If you missed yesterday’s email, you can read it here. Today, we keep digging into the surrounding context of the passage so we can more fully grasp what is happening when Jesus says:

Excited to be back in God’s Word with you today!

In today’s email…

✉ subscribe here | support our work 👐

The _____ comes only to _____ and ____ and _______. I came that they may have ____ and have it __________.

John 10:10

Kids don't need a perfect mom. They need a praying one.

A lot of moms (and grandmas) don't need to hear "try harder." They already are.

Motherhood is beautiful and full — from bedtime songs to the unprompted "I love you" from the backseat. But woven into the beautiful are the hard moments. The 2am spirals. The loneliness. The feeling that you're not enough or that no one sees how hard you're trying.

God sees all of it. And He meets you right there.

The Power of a Praying Mom is a free guide from Compassion International that gives you seven honest prayers for seven types of difficult motherhood moments. Rather than a pep talk, the guide provides actual words to bring before God when you don't know what to say.

If that sounds like something you (or someone you love) needs, click below to get it for free.

Most of the time when we read John 10:10, it can be easy to read it in isolation. A nice line about life and how Jesus wants a good life for us.

But The Good Shepherd speech actually starts in chapter 9.

Here's what happens…

Jesus walks past a man born blind. The disciples ask whose sin caused it: the man's or his parents'.

Jesus says neither. Then he spits in the dirt, makes mud, smears it on the blind man's eyes, and tells him to wash it off in a pool. The man does it and comes back seeing.

Then the religious leaders find out.

They drag the formerly blind man in. They question him. They question his parents. They call Jesus a sinner for not observing the Sabbath.

And they demand that the formerly blind man reject Jesus.

He won't. He says:

So they throw him out of the synagogue.

That's the last sentence of chapter 9. The very next sentence says,

Jesus is talking about the religious leaders who just threw out the (formerly) blind man.

Ironically, the man was physically blind, but the religious leaders were spiritually blind. They were more concerned with their power and position.

Their pride blinded them to the point where they were angry that a blind man had just gained his sight after a lifetime of blindness:

And verse 10 (our memory verse) lands in the middle of that confrontation.

So when Jesus compares the thief with the shepherd, he is talking about the religious leaders (thieves) and himself (the shepherd).

And when he promises "life and have it abundantly," he's defending a specific man who just got pushed out of his own community for telling the truth about what Jesus did for him.

Getting rejected for sticking with Jesus might cost you something now, but ultimately, he offers you something far better that can’t be taken away.

And we’ll dig into that even more tomorrow.

On January 4, 1874, Charles Spurgeon stood in the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London and preached on this exact verse. He titled the sermon "Life More Abundant." He was the most famous preacher in England at the time, and his church was packed.

Years later, he was pushed out by his own denomination for warning them they were drifting from the Bible and the gospel. Almost no one stood with him. He lost his place, but he didn’t change his message. He kept preaching Christ.

In John 9, the healed man was thrown out for telling the truth about Jesus. Often times following Jesus costs you something (people, status, power, belonging).

But in John 10, Jesus says he’s the Good Shepherd. When the world pushes you out, Jesus brings you in. And the life he gives is better than anything you lost.

Sit with this question today:

Like the formerly blind man, where can I be more open about telling people the truth of what Jesus has done in my life?

🙏 Pray

Jesus, you healed the blind man just like you healed me from my own spiritual blindness. Thank you for that. Give me the boldness he had to declare to everyone around me the truth of what you’ve done for me. Telling the truth of who you are and what you’ve done is more important than any worldly approval I could ever receive. Give me an opportunity to share the story of what you’ve done this week. Amen.

Click one of the answers below. Let’s see how you do…

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

John 10:10