Building Blocks in John 3

1. Jesus shocks Nicodemus: “Your prestige and religious scholarship are not the fullness God desires to bestow.  People can only enter God’s kingdom by being born again!”  (John 3:1-3)  Are your religious credentials — or lack of them — the sum total of what God has in store for you?

2. Jesus advises Nick, “Those who have been born again can relate to God as His beloved children.”  If you called God “Daddy”, would it feel childish?  Presumptuous?  Comforting?

3. Jesus says that people born of the Holy Spirit will be like the wind, free, empowered, and unpredictable.  To what degree is your life in the Spirit free, energized, and seasoned with divine surprises? Are such things sought and welcomed in your church or circle of Christians?  Have limitations been set in place to try to control the wind of the Holy Spirit?  If so, how is that working?  (John 3:3-8)

4. Trusting in the death of Jesus Christ, we are saved from perishing as punishment for our sinful deeds.  The wonderful result is eternal life.  Does the term “eternal life” refer only to life after death, or does it also include Now?  What difference does it make?  (John 3:14-18)

5. Why does Jesus change the topic to evil deeds done in darkness and good deeds done in light and truth?  Can green plants be fruitful in darkness?  Who is the Light who has entered the world, so that our deeds can now be done in relationship to God?  (John 3:19-21)

6. Some disciples of John the Baptist complain, “Everyone is forgetting you, John, and running off to Jesus!”  But John replies, “Jesus must trend upward.  I must trend downward.”  The more full we are of ourselves, the less we can walk in the fullness of Christ.  (John 3:22-33)

7. Why is Team Trinity one of the building blocks of life in Christ?  In John 3:34-36, note the different roles of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Is one Person of the Trinity your favorite?  Why?  Do you think they always get along, or do they ever jockey for position?

Reading the Bible is exciting as we detect the building blocks of life in Christ and allow them to collide with any false beliefs that are stunting our growth in Christ.