Ask the Lord to minister to you.  Ask him to confirm and increase your faith. And then ask him to help you make it a practice of fixing your eyes on Jesus who is the author and finisher of our faith.

Disciplines and vocations have access points. When you enter college as an economics major you start with Economics 101. When you begin an exercise program for the first time you hire a trainer or as an experienced friend for help. You may even read a basic book on nutrition. Why?  Because you are seeking to enter a world with which you lack familiarity.  But that’s not only true of our occupation and other disciplines it true of books.  It is especially true of the Bible.  I don’t know many people who encourage a new believer to read Numbers or Leviticus. Not because they are uninspired. Of course not! But they are not the best access points into the book we call the Bible.  The Puritan William Perkins wrote the Art of Prophesying and he argued for the Gospel of John and the book of Romans as two of the best access points to the Scriptures. We might agree.

However, individual books also have on ramps. We might study the book of Philippians through the topic of joy. Or we might study Matthew’s gospel using the five discourses as our guide to the rest of the work.  Now, why do I bring all of this up? Because in a series of articles we are going to study the Gospel of John and we are going to do it through one of his on ramps, in this case, the signs or miracles in the book. John has a number of signs or wonders and they each tell Jesus story.

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