"I tell you the truth"

  So this last couple of weeks, honestly it has been extremely hard for me to concentrate on my Bible time, it seems there is always something that has taken my attention away and this is not good for me, I need the focus and I need the direction but life for me got too LOUD!
Does that ever happen to you? life gets too loud? I wasn't sure how to pull myself out of this but I was really missing my quiet time with God, I missed seeing something new in the Bible that got me all excited and asking more questions, and no matter how hard I tried to concentrate the harder it got.

Well, finally I put all my things down as I watched the Pope talk on t.v.  It reminded me of the letters Paul wrote to...well, everyone. That then got me thinking about the Gospels, and how Graham Cooke said that no matter how many times we have read them that we should read them over and over, as often as we can.
I picked up my Bible again and turned to the book of John, which I know pretty well. So I was reading and I see "I tell you the truth" over and over and over in that book, so I counted and...There are 25ish "I tell you the truth" scriptures in the book of John alone, it sent me on a hunt then, how many are in the whole Bible? Well in my research I found three different commentaries that said that phrase was in the Bible 78 times, I didn't count. However that knowledge led me to question the need to say "I tell you the truth" or "very truly I tell you" I read them all in sequential order and loved what I learned...How patient Jesus was and still is...wow, he emphatically wants us to understand. I am sure that he was exasperated but did not stop pointing to the Father, not even once he "truly" was more patient then we a dim witted at times! I Challenge you to do you very own truth study and see what you can learn. I just love getting in there and digging all around and learning new truths about who I am in Christ each time that I do.
   In doing this you will learn more about who God is and more about who he crated us to be and I am sure you will learn something I didn't, so please share. This world is full of people who have no idea of who they are and it is us who have begun to learn who we are, that will help others gain this knowledge for them selves, they will see us changing right before their eyes and want some of that goodness too!