3 Day Bible Reading Plan - “Jesus’ List”

“I don’t know what is ahead for you this holiday season. I don’t know what your Christmas list would look like if you were honest about all that you really need or deeply desire this year, but perhaps each one of our perspectives needs to shift. What if we weren’t just trying to fill a series of buckets, but could meet with a source of life that would allow us to experience peace and wholeness even when the buckets aren’t filled? Jesus gives us himself as that source of life because he is more than just a giver of good gifts; he is the greatest gift.” - Pastor Daniel Johnson, 11/30/25

Day 1

• Featured Verse: John 17:1–5 - “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.”

• Jesus defines eternal life as “that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (v. 3). Why is personal, relational knowledge of God and of the sent Son the essence of eternal life rather than merely endless existence or moral improvement?

• Jesus prays, “And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed” (v. 5). What does this request tell us about the pre-existence of the Son, the voluntary nature of the incarnation, and the ultimate goal of redemption?

• Throughout these verses, Jesus speaks with absolute confidence about his identity, mission, and relationship with the Father. How does this opening section of the prayer challenge or deepen our own understanding of who Jesus truly is (both fully divine and yet genuinely submissive to the Father)?

Pause and Reflect: When you consider that the Son who shared glory with the Father before the world began (v. 5) willingly laid that glory aside so that you could truly know God, what does it do inside your heart to realize that you are now invited into the very same intimate, eternal relationship that the Father and Son have enjoyed from all eternity?

“Mark, beloved, Jesus is speaking of the very hour when He was to be spit upon, scourged, and nailed to the tree—and yet He calls it the hour of His glory. Ah! yes, the darkest cloud had the brightest silver lining. The lowest depths of His shame were the highest peaks of His glory. When man saw nothing but a malefactor dying in agony, the Father saw His beloved Son covering the mercy-seat with His blood.” - Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“When Jesus said, ‘I have glorified Thee on the earth: I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do’—the cross was still ahead of Him. Yet He spoke in the past tense. Why? Because in the will of God, the work was already done. The Lamb was slain from before the foundation of the world. The cross was not an afterthought; it was the forethought of eternity.” - G. Campbell Morgan

Day 2

• Featured Verse: John 3:16 - “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

• Eternal life in John 17:3 is defined as knowing “the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” John 3:16 says whoever believes in the Son “has eternal life.” How does believing in the Son become the doorway into the very same intimate knowledge of the Father that the Son has enjoyed from all eternity?

• John 3:16 presents two ultimate outcomes: eternal life or perishing. If eternal life is relational knowledge of God (John 17:3), what does it mean to “perish”?

• Before the world began, the Father and Son already shared eternal glory—yet together they chose that the Son would lay it aside to die for you. How might you more fully realize you were loved that deliberately, that personally, before you ever existed?

Pause and Reflect: What hidden part of you still whispers that you’re an afterthought, a maybe, or too broken to be wanted, and what would it do to your soul if you let the eternal Son look you in the eye and say, “I left that glory for you”?

“You will never understand the cross until you understand the little word ‘so’. God so loved—such a love, such a cost, such a giving, such a dying. The ‘so’ is the wonder of it all.” - Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“God so loved the world that He gave… He gave everything. He could give no more. He gave His only-begotten Son. And the Son gave Himself. Love never stopped giving until it had given all.” - F. B. Meyer

Day 3

• Featured Verse: John 17:6–11 - “Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.”

• If the “name” of the Father is ultimately everything He is (His character, glory, and being), how is the entire earthly life of Jesus—especially the cross—the supreme unveiling of who the Father really is, and what does it mean for you that you now bear that same revealed name?

• Twice in these verses Jesus stresses that the disciples “are yours… you gave them to me” (vv. 6, 9). How does this repeated emphasis on divine ownership and divine gift deepen your understanding of your own identity—not as someone who found God, but as someone the Father deliberately chose and handed over to the Son before you ever chose Him?

• In what ways is simple, persevering obedience to the word of Christ the deepest evidence that we truly belong to the Father and have come to know the Son He sent?

Pause and Reflect: Before a single drop of blood falls, Jesus claims you as His own. The same voice that spoke galaxies into being is pleading for you to be kept, treasured, and brought home… and calls you His glory.

“I am glorified in them.” The Son of God is glorified in poor worms of the dust. He is glorified in their salvation, glorified in their love, glorified in their praises—yes, glorified in their very weaknesses when grace shines through them.” - Jonathan Edwards

“The Shepherd is going out into the storm, and His last thought is not for Himself but for the sheep. He hands them over to the Father’s arms, and the Father’s arms have never yet dropped one of them.” - Alexander Maclaren