Marissa Henley

Encouraging weary women to hope in Christ alone

All Things Made Through Him

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Last week we started studying John 1 and its evidence for why we can trust the eternal, divine Son of God, Jesus Christ. Today we learn more about what the Son was doing in the beginning of time: 

“He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” (John 1:2-3)

The Son wasn’t a passive observer of creation—all things were made through Him. We read the words “God said” over and over in Genesis 1. With each act of creation, God spoke something into existence by the power of His Word. (See Genesis 1:3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, 26, 29.) John wants us to make the connection that this Word is the Son who “became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). 

What difference does this truth make in our daily lives when we struggle to trust Christ through difficult circumstances? Elsewhere in Scripture, we see the Son’s creative work tied closely with His sustaining reign over all things. Paul writes in Colossians that all things were created by, through, and for the Son: 

“For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:16-17) 

In Hebrews, we see this strong statement about the sustaining power of the Son: 

“He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.” (Hebrews 1:3a) 

God the Son was there in the beginning. All things were made through Him and for Him. Nothing He has made can spin out of His control—He upholds it all by His power. 

This same Word is your Savior who gave His life for you. He is your good Shepherd, and He cares for you. His faithful care is unlimited because of His divine power—all of creation answers to Him. 

No matter what you face this week, you can trust God’s Son because all things were made through Him and for Him. 

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The Eternal Son of God

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The animated version of Disney’s Aladdin has always been one of my favorite movies. (Probably because I saw it with my husband on our second date in 1992!) There are two scenes early in the story when Aladdin asks Jasmine to do something scary, like jumping out a window or hopping on a flying carpet. He holds out his hand and says, “Do you trust me?” Because it’s a movie, she says yes—even though she has very little knowledge on which to base her trust. 

If you are a Christian, you’ve put your trust in Jesus Christ for your salvation. But when you face scary, overwhelming, or difficult situations, you may wonder if you can continue to trust Him. God’s Word gives us evidence so we know He is worthy of our trust. 

In John 1, we find many of those reasons, and we’ll look at several over the next few weeks. John introduces us to God’s Son, referred to as the Word, this way: 

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1)

The Word is eternal. Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” In the beginning, before creation began, the Word was there. John later explains that the “Word became flesh and dwelt among us”—God’s Son, Jesus Christ (John 1:14). 

The Word is divine. It’s not just that the Word was there or that the Word with with God—John makes the Son’s divinity clear with the simple statement, “and the Word was God.” All that’s true of God the Father—His holiness, love, faithfulness, sovereignty, power, wisdom, and so on—is also true of the Son. 

And the divine Word wasn’t just there in the beginning—He will be there in the end. In Revelation 1:17-18, Jesus says: “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.” 

We place our trust in Christ because He is the eternal Son of God who took on flesh and lived and died for us. Because He is eternal, we can trust Him with our future, now and forever. 

No matter what you face this week, you can trust the eternal Son of God. 

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God Hears Our Prayers

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I thought having teens was good for my prayer life, but that was nothing compared to having a child leave for college. 

It’s tough on a mama to know there’s not much I can do to help my son now that he’s out of the house. I can’t see if he’s eating well or getting enough sleep. I don’t know from day to day if he’s happy or sad or lonely or stressed. He doesn’t even bring his laundry home! 

But I can pray. 

This month we’ve been studying 2 Corinthians 1:3-11, and we’ve seen how God is our comfort, our hope, and our deliverer who grows our reliance on Him through times of affliction. Today, Paul closes this section by asking for the Corinthians’ prayers. 

“You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.” (2 Corinthians 1:11) 

Sometimes we may wonder, if God is in control and already knows what will happen, why pray? This is a complicated question, but here’s one simple answer: in His Word, God commands us to pray. But this isn’t the only reason we pray for others. 

We see in today’s verse that our prayers help others. Paul wrote, “You must help us by prayer.” This truth is comforting to me when people I love are suffering from problems I can’t fix. I can’t take their pain away, but I can pray to the God of all comfort. 

This verse points out another reason to pray: Prayer leads to praise. When we pray, God gets all the praise and glory and thanks for the outcome. We’re acknowledging that He is at work in our situation. We’re placing our trust in Him, knowing His plans for us are good because He is good. 

And let’s remember that God’s sovereignty isn’t a reason not to pray – it’s a reason to pray. If God wasn’t sovereign, why would we bother asking Him to do anything? We have the privilege of praying to the one true God, the Maker and Ruler of all creation. He is the One with the power to answer our heartfelt prayers. 

No matter what you face this week, God hears your prayers for yourself and those you care about. 

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God is Our Deliverer

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This month we’ve been studying lessons about affliction in 2 Corinthians 1. When we suffer, we receive God’s comfort, grow in hope, and deepen our reliance on God. Last week we saw that Paul and his companions suffered so badly that they weren’t sure they could survive it (2 Corinthians 1:8-9). This week’s verse gives us the foundation of Paul’s hope in dire circumstances: his hope in God’s deliverance. 

“He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again.” (2 Corinthians 1:10) 

Paul celebrated God’s past deliverance and counted on God’s future deliverance. He knew that God would either deliver him on this earth, or He would deliver him from this earth into his heavenly home. In fact, later in this letter, Paul says he would “rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8). 

This confidence reminds me of the confidence we see in Daniel 3 before Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were thrown into the fiery furnace by King Nebuchadnezzar. These three young Israelites were in exile in Babylon and had refused to down down to a golden idol. When Nebuchadnezzar asked what god would save them, they replied:

“If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.” (Daniel 3:17-18)

Like Paul, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had confidence in God’s deliverance. They also trusted God’s purposes, even if the deliverance didn’t look the way they would choose. 

If you have placed your hope in Christ, God has already delivered you from sin and death through Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. Sometimes we may not understand why God doesn’t deliver us more quickly from our earthly trials. But when our hope is in Christ, this is the confidence we have in hard times: our God has delivered us, and He will deliver us again. 

No matter what you face this week, God is your deliverer. 

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