Hello, good people, and welcome to the Daily

Bible Refresh brought to you by Voice

of God Daily. I am doctor Brad Miller

and indeed this is the Bible study where we come

to you every day to bring you a fresh approach to reading the

scripture from the revised common lectionary.

We're in year c, and this is this particular

reading for the 2nd Sunday after

Christmas prior to epiphany, which is January

6th. So we read the scripture in a way that is

understandable. So we read it from the message interpretation of the

Bible, which is and we also read only the new

testament reading for this particular day. We make

it relatable by giving you a couple of points to ponder to

think about, and we make it understandable and applicable into your

life and, by giving you an action point. We're for

prayer, and then we send you on your way in

less than 10 minutes or so. Our reading for the day is from the

gospel of John chapter 1 verses

10 through 18, reading from the

message. The life light

was the real thing. Every person every person

entering life, he brings into light.

He was in the world. The world was there through him, and

yet the world didn't even notice. He came to his own people, but

they didn't want him. But whoever did want him, who believed he

was who he claimed and would do what he said, he

made to be their true selves, their child

of god selves.

These are the God begotten,

not blood begotten, not flesh begotten, not sex

begotten. The word became flesh and blood and moved into the

neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one of

a kind glory like a father, like son,

generous inside and out, true from start to finish.

John pointed him out and called out, this is the one, the one I

told you was coming after me but, in fact, was ahead of

me. He has always been ahead of me. He has always had the

first word. We all live off of His generous

abundance, gift after gift

after gift. We got the basics from

Moses, and then this exuberant

giving and receiving. This endless

knowing and understanding, all of this came through Jesus,

the Messiah. No one has ever

seen God, not so much as even a glimpse.

This one of a kind God expression

who exists at the very heart of the father has made him

plain as day. What a

what a tremendous passage of scripture on this

2nd Sunday after Christmas. It's all about kind

of it's all about experiencing a divine light in your

neighborhood. And as we reflect on this passage of scripture,

I would like you to think about this this reading for John is

very poetic, about the poetic incarnation

or the coming of God into reality, into our world

through Jesus, and whose divine

presence of god is right here in our midst.

A couple of points to ponder and think about. One of them is that

this is radical. We might call it radical

incarnation. That is that God moved

into our very neighborhood. God is with

us, and this beautifully captures

the revolutionary nature of incarnation. It isn't

about some distant far off thing, God who's woo

wooing out there in the heavens somewhere,

about something distance, but it's about real life right here, right now.

It's about God's presence in the ordinary parts of life, the everyday

spaces of your life and mine.

Our approach to Christianity like this embraces

this, what we may call, embodied spirituality. It becomes part of the

body. Finding God not just in a at a church or

some sacred place, but in a garden, in your car,

in playing with your kids, in

speaking against some injustice in your community, or in a

neighborhood party or with dinner with friends.

In the mundane and the difficult at all things, God is

there. Now the point to think about is our true

selves versus an inherited identity. That is John makes a

distinction here between identities we inherit, you know, the blood

begotten, flesh begotten, and so on, and our authentic

child of God selves. This speaks

to an understanding of a chosen

identity and authentic self expression,

and it really tells us that our true selves emerge

not from expectations of others or of society

or any traditional roles, but from embracing our

divine connection. One more thing here that I think is

important that has to do with the comparison of abundance over

scarcity, because the this text here speaks about abundance,

generous abundance, and gift after gift after gift.

And this challenges a lot of the scarcity mindsets that are in our world right

now, and it's in our religious world, and it's in our society politically

and no otherwise. And, progressive theology

emphasizes that divine love and grace are inexhaustible.

It's a resource we can never run out of. The pie

is never short. It is always there. There's always enough pie

to go around. There, especially

when the resources are shared and not hoarded

by selfishness. Here's your action step.

I want you to practice what we might call neighborhood incarnation, that is seeing

God in your everyday life, and choose some way

that you can express and understand the

holy within your life and see it in your

immediate community. See it in the coffee shop you go to. See

it at your school. See it at your workplace. It

might mean see it in a place where you volunteer.

See it in a place how you care for your community,

or simply try to be present to the needs of somebody else.

And you might even want to document this, write it down or record it, and

see how God's life light

illuminates your life.

Before we pray, I wanna mention to you about a resource we have available to

you. I put it together for you. It's called the ABC

123 Bible study guide, and it really just makes studying your

Bible as easy as ABC in 123. You gotta check it out. So you

just go to voice of god daily.com. That's our website, and you can

get a free copy of it right there. My name

is, doctor Brad Miller, and it is always a joy to be with

you here on the daily Bible refresh.

I'll be with you again here tomorrow. Until that time,

we've just please just remember that God's loyal love doesn't run

out. His merciful love never dries up, is

created new every morning.