These are Written

Today my devotional was talking about the passage in John that talks about continuing to believe that Jesus is the messiah, here's what it had to say...
The disciples saw Jesus do many miraculous signs in addition to the ones recorded in this book. But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the son of God, and that by believing in him you will have life by the power of his name.  John 20-30-31
Notice that the above passage comes just after the resurrection story in John's Gospel. As a writer, I instinctively wonder why it was so important for John to offer this explanation. Perhaps there were many stories about the resurrected Jesus was there were people to witness him walking around- and were assured there were hundreds of witnesses who could've spent the rest of his life collecting those stories and writing them down. But he didn't. He chose to record just a few, and that's what ended up in his Gospel. So how did he decide what to include and what to edit out? Especially when he loved Jesus so much that he probably could've talked about him all day long, to anybody who would listen, for the rest of his life. John told us exactly what he had to do. He chose only those stories that accomplished his purpose. And what was his purpose? What was his driving theme? That his readers "may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God." Any story that didn't accomplish this purpose just didn't make the cut. So what about my own life? What if I'm a book that others are reading? if my theme is Jesus. what do i include and what be edited out? -Sarah Arthur

The part that really stuck out to me in this verse was at the end of the verse where it says, "so that you may believe in him and have life in his name." That's so cool that we have this amazing book of scripture that we can read and through that we can come to know God more. So that we can have life in his name...think about that...so good! So, Go grab your bible and soak up his word!
John 20:30-31 says...
 ³⁰ "Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. ³¹ But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name"