Devotionary

This fourth episode on 1 John, chapter five, verses 6-12 is an important one. It is called, “Present-Tense Belief” and deals with a problem I think most of us face as believers. The tendency to see our testimony as something in the past. We have been trained to think of our faith story as having taken place at a singular point in time. But John would seem to differ from that perspective. He would see our faith as ever-evolving and expanding, growing in depth and confidence. It is never stagnant or stationary. The faith to believe should become the faith to keep on believing. Saving faith should become sanctifying faith. If we find ourselves thinking that placing our faith in Christ was a one-time event that occurred sometime in the past, we are missing the point. There is no doubt that the moment we place our faith in Jesus as our Savior, we are immediately declared positionally righteous by God. But he is out to make us practically righteous – by transforming our thoughts and behavior – as we continue to pla

This is the third episode on 1 John, chapter five, verses 6-12 and its’ called, “Internal Evidence”. As John continues to litigate Jesus’ claim to be the Son of God and the long-awaited Messiah, he will call the Holy Spirit as witness. And because each and every believer in Jesus Christ has the Spirit of God living within him, this testimony is internal, not external. We have living proof, living inside us. The indwelling Spirit of God provides us with daily, irrefutable evidence that Christ was exactly who He claimed to be. His Spirit within us testifies directly to us. As John says, “Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself” (1 John 5:10). We don’t have to go far. We don’t even have to look outside of ourselves. We have the transformative power of God residing within us. And that could only mean one thing. Jesus was the Son of God and the Savior of the world. And when He promised to give us the Spirit to live within us, He had meant it and delivered on it.

This is the second episode on 1 John, chapter five, verses 6-12 and its’ called, “God’s Testimony”. There are all kinds of opinions and testimonies concerning Jesus out there. And the truth is, there’s nothing new under the sun. The denials of Jesus’ deity and even the claims that He never even existed have been around since the days just after His death. Denying Jesus is one of the oldest sports known to mankind. But at the end of the day, it really doesn’t matter what men think. We should worry a lot more about what God has to say on the issue. And, according to John, God the Father has a lot to say about His Son. The naysayers, doubters, critics and postmodern deconstructionists can shout all they want. They can pontificate and posture, presenting the claims of the bible concerning Jesus as nothing more than fantasy, but God’s word supersedes theirs. His opinion is the only one that really matters. It was King David who said, “The fool says in his heart, “There is no God” (Psalm 14:1 ESV). And the same foo

As has been our custom throughout the book of John, this will be the first of seven episodes on 1 John, chapter five, verses 6-12. I’ve entitled this first one, “Can I Get A Witness?” The fact is, John had more than enough witnesses to support His assertion that Jesus was the Son of God. And in these verses he is going to point out three of them. It really didn’t matter what others said or taught. They could deny the deity of Jesus, but it didn’t change anything. There was more than enough proof to support Jesus’ claim to be the Son of God and the Savior of the world. And John will begin with the Holy Spirit Himself. The very fact that He existed and had come to indwell each and every believer was more than enough proof that Jesus had been who He claimed to be. He had promised the Holy Spirit would come after He returned to have, and the Holy Spirit had come – in power, at Pentecost. But there were two other witnesses to Jesus deity. His baptism and crucifixion. At the first, God confirmed Jesus as His Son. A

This is our final episode on 1 John, chapter five, verses 1-5, and it’s called, “New Birth = New Life.”  You see, for John, our new birth was to result in a new way of life. As believers, we have been born of God and, as a result, we should reflect the very nature of our heavenly Father. We should bear His likeness is all that we do. We should be chips off the old block, so to speak. God has made it possible for us to emulate the character of His Son. But much more than this, He has made it possible for us to be transformed into His very likeness. We don’t just mimic Jesus, we become Christ-like in our speech and conduct because we are being made into His image from one degree of glory to another. While we live on this earth, we are going through a God-ordained transformation. And just like our salvation, it is the work of God. Left to our own devices, we could no more copy the character of Jesus than we could fly like a bird without the help of a plane, parachute, glider or some other outside aid. Our new li

This is episode six on 1 John, chapter five, verses 1-5, and it’s simply called, “Faith.”  You’re familiar with the word. And while faith is usually associated with, well, people of faith, it is something every living human being utilizes each and every day of their lives. So, what’s the difference between the faith of the average man on the street and that of a follower of Christ? The answer is the last word at the end of the previous sentence: Christ. It’s the object of our faith that makes the difference. It is who or what we are placing our faith, hope or trust in. Everyone has faith in something or someone. We all live by faith. But sometimes our faith ends up disappointed because the object of our faith fails to come through for us. But for those who place their faith in Christ, that’s never a possibility. Oh, we can still find ourselves worrying that He will come through for us, but it will prove to be a waste of our time. Because He is faithful. And it is because He is faithful that our faith in Him i

This is our fifth episode on 1 John, chapter five, verses 1-5, and I’ve called it, “Nike.”  Long before that word became a household name and a ubiquitous presence in virtually every household around the world, it was a common Greek word. One that John liked to use. And in our verse for today, he will use it to describe believers are overcomers. As we saw in the previous episode, we have been born from above and, as a result, we are intended to be victorious, those who overcome the world. But what does that really mean? And how are we supposed to pull it off. It all goes back to that little Greek word. But John isn’t going to tell us to strap on the latest pair of running shoes or trainers. He isn’t going to encourage us to hit the treadmill or the gym wearing the latest workout fashions made with dry-wick fabric. In fact, our victory has little to do with us. Instead, it has everything to do with what Christ has done for us. Our ultimate victory over this world is dependent upon the work of Christ and our fa

This is episode four on 1 John, chapter five, verses 1-5, and it’s entitled, “Unfinished Business.”  You see, John is going to call us to remain obedient – until the end. God expects faithfulness from His people and He has provided everything they need to pull it off. He has placed His Spirit within us, placed us within the body of Christ, and provided us with the Word of God as a constant source of teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. We have all we need to be all we need to be. And God is at work, behind the scenes, working on our lives in ways that are oftentimes invisible to us. He is molding and perfecting us, out of love, into the likeness of His Son. And one of the main ways we show our love to God is by obeying His commands. By allowing His Spirit to lead and direct us. By not only reading His Word, but doing what it says and applying it to our lives. When Jesus gave the great commission to His disciples, He told them to go and make more disciples, but He added a line that we

In this, our third episode on 1 John, chapter five, verses 1-5, we’ll be taking a look at what John means when he says we have been born of God. He is not talking about creation or our status as human beings. In fact, John uses the term “born of God” to refer exclusively to believers. It is a term of differentiation, used to set us apart from the rest of humanity. We are born from above. In other words, it is the work of God. It is not a physical event, like the one we experienced at birth. It is spiritual in nature. And it is only possible through belief in Jesus Christ. Our new birth is made available to us by the grace of God and through faith in His Son. That faith not only results in our new birth, but our subsequent victory over sin and death. We move from living under the control and dominion of Satan into a relationship with God Himself. We become His sons and daughters, with all the rights and privileges that come with being His heirs. We become, as John puts it, overcomers. Victors in Christ because

This is the second episode on 1 John, chapter five, verses 1-5 and it’s entitled, “Do We Really Love?”. Sometimes we can think we’re loving another individual, while, in fact, we are simply going through the motions. Externally, it may appear as if we are loving, but in reality, our actions are lacking in compassion and love. We look like we’re doing the right thing, but our hearts are not in it. And without love, Paul would say our best actions on our best day, backed by our best intentions, are nothing to brag about. We tend to see love as a list of actions to be taken or commands to be followed. But if our heart isn’t in it, our efforts become little more than legalism, or an attempt to win favor with God. I can give money to the poor, but if I don’t love them while I am doing it, my actions are hollow and empty. And when I love others the way God has loved me, I am actually showing love to Him. And to be able to love others even when I see their flaws and failings, is to love as I have been loved.

This is the first of seven episodes on 1 John, chapter five, verses 1-5. This first one is called, “Proof Positive” and will deal with a topic that should be of concern for each and every Christ-follower: The assurance of our salvation. While that is not necessarily the primary thought John was trying to get across in these verses, it comes out loud and clear. The real issue is that of belief. Belief in Jesus Christ as the Savior, sent by God to die for the sins of men. It is our belief in Him that provides us with assurance of our salvation. Not only that, John writes in his gospel, “that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” If we believe that Jesus Christ is our Savior, we can know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we are saved. And when we find ourselves loving our brothers and sisters in Christ, we are doubly assured, because that capacity to love comes from God. It is His Spirit living within us, made possible by Christ’s death on the cross, that allows us to love selfless

This is our seventh episode on 1 John, chapter four, verses 7-21. It’s called, “Love Like God Loves” and in it, we will attempt to differentiate what John means when he says we are to love as we have been loved. The standard for our love is heavenly, not earthly. It is not of this world. And we don’t get to determine what that love looks like or how we get to express it. God’s brand of love is different than ours. His love is eternal, not temporal. It doesn’t fade with time or fluctuate based on the actions of the one being loved. God’s love is transformative in nature. It is out to change the one being loved. To improve their life. To give them eternal life. God’s kind of love is redemptive and restorative. And ours should be as well. Our love, like His, should have the best interest of others in mind. We love them, not so they will love us in return, but so that they might know the love of God through us. We want them to know what it feels like to be loved by God as we have been loved by Him. Selflessly, sa

This is episode six on 1 John, chapter four, verses 7-21. I’ve entitled it, “Love Is of God” because, once again, John is going to stress love as an outflow of the very character of God. Love is not some arbitrary, subjective feeling we conjure up. We don’t even get to define the nature of love. Because as John has already told us, God is love. He is the ultimate definition or expression of love. And John makes it quite clear that we will never fully understand who God is until we come to grips with just how much God loved us – in spite of us. God’s love is directly tied to His holiness and justice. These qualities are not in conflict with one another within the nature of God. He can be loving and just at the same time. He can discipline in love. He can judge sin in love. And nowhere is this better expressed than at the cross. The crucifixion was the focal point on which the love and wrath of God met. He sent His Son to die for us, as an expression of His love. He crucified Christ as an expression of His hatr

This is our fifth episode on 1 John, chapter four, verses 7-21 and is entitled, “God Loved.” The love of God is an oft misunderstood topic. Part of the problem is that we bring our own definitions of love to the equation, attempting to force on God our preconceived notions of what it means to show and receive love. But the Bible tells us that God is love. In other words, it is God who gets to define love and it is His very nature that provides the meaning. If God is love, then all that He does is done in love. Love is the permeating quality behind all His actions, whether we see it or not. So, when God tells us to love one another as He has loved us, we need to stop and think about what He is saying. How did He love us? What was the primary way in which He expressed His love to us? God sent His Son to die for us. And while that may appear to us to be a strange way of expressing love, it does not change the fact love is exactly what it was. As John wrote in His gospel, “For God so loved the world that He gave

This is episode four on 1 John, chapter four, verses 7-21 and is entitled, “Real Love.” There is a lot of confusion about love these days. So, it is essential that we listen closely to what the apostle John has to say about the topic. He is going to provide us with a vastly different definition of love than what we hear being proclaimed today. The three verses we are going to concentrate our attention on today will give the impression that true love is best expressed through actions. After all, John will remind us: “let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.” So, our love is to be tangible. Talk is cheap. Actions speak louder than words. But is meeting the physical needs of others the only legitimate expression of our love? Is there more that we should be doing? John will talk about Jesus laying down His life for us. And he will challenge us to do the same for others. This isn’t about writing a check, providing a handout, or meeting a temporal need. John is calling us to a greater kind of love,

In this, our third episode on 1 John, chapter four, verses 7-21, we’ll continue to explore John’s definition of love. And he will make it quite clear that God is love. He is the ultimate definition of love. We don’t get to define love on our terms. And we don’t get to decide whether God is loving us the way we want to be loved. One of the major problems in our society today is that we have turned love into a self-centered, all-about-me kind of sentiment that begins and ends on us. We decide how we want to be loved and demand that everyone, including God, love us the way we expect. But John will demand that we abide in love – in other words, that we find comfort in the love of God as expressed in the sacrificial death of His Son. If we want to know if God loves us, all we have to do is look at the cross. God’s love for us is not to be measured in the size of our checking account, the square footage of our home, the cost of our car, the absence of difficulties or any feelings of happiness we may enjoy. The love

This is episode two on 1 John, chapter four, verses 7-21. It’s entitled “God = Love.” In our day and age, it has become increasingly popular to envision God as love. So much so, that many have made His love the only characteristic of God that really matters. The kind of love they speak of is a tolerant, all-accepting kind of love that is devoid of any trace of judgmentalism or punishment for sins committed. The 21st-Century God is all-loving and nothing but loving. But John would have us understand that God’s love for us was best expressed in His own Son’s death for us. God sent Jesus to be the propitiation for our sins. With His substitutionary death on the cross, Jesus paid our sin debt and satisfied the just demands of a holy God. Our sin required a payment. Someone had to die because the penalty for sin is death. But God showed us how much He loved us by sending His Son to die for us. The modern-day version of God has removed His wrath and judgment. It has painted Him as a one-dimensional God who only lov

This is the first of seven episodes on 1 John, chapter four, verses 7-21. I’ve entitled it “Perfect Love” because John is going to continue his discussion of the love we are to exhibit to all those around us. And it isn’t just any kind of love we are to show. It’s godly love. The perfect love of God as expressed through His Son’s sacrificial death on the cross. Godly love is selfless in nature. It isn’t based on the lovability of the one being loved. It isn’t earned or deserved. And the kind of love God has showered on us is the same kind of love we are to share with all those around us. His love gets perfected or completed through us. We end up loving others as we have been loved. We become conduits of His love. And it begins within the body of Christ, but flows out to the lost with whom we live and interact every day. As John puts it so clearly, “We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19 ESV). In other words, our love for others is motivated by God’s gracious love for us. We know what perfect love is.

This is the final episode on 1 John, chapter four, verses 1-6 and it’s called, “Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up?” We live in an age of growing skepticism when it comes to the claims of the Bible and, specifically, the message of the gospel. People have no problem believing that Jesus existed as an historical figure. But they have difficulty accepting His deity and the idea of His being the sacrifice for the sins of mankind. So, they invent a different Jesus. They come up with a way to explain away His divinity, by stressing His humanity. And they downplay His role as a Savior by denying the reality of sin. For so many in John’s day, Jesus was seen as a revolutionary who came to change the world, but they refused to see Him as the Savior of the world. And we face the same kind of resistance to the gospel message today. There are so many views about Jesus that it’s hard to keep up with them all. And the greatest problem is that these false views find their way into the thinking of self-proclaimed Christ-fol

This is episode six on 1 John, chapter four, verses 1-6 and it’s entitled, “Ears to Hear.” One of the things John stresses is the need for the people of God to be discerning. And there is no reason for us not to be. We have the Word of God available to us and the Spirit of God living within us. We have ample help in telling the difference between false teaching and the truth of God. But it requires that we listen carefully. We are not to accept what anyone says just because they claim to speak for God. We live in an age of tolerance and subjectivity. Everyone is free to have their own opinion. We are told not to judge others or to push our views on anyone else. But John would have us remember that there is truth and error, righteousness and unrighteousness. And we are to have nothing to do with those who would twist the truth of God or try to offer a different gospel. Listening to anyone and everything can be dangerous. As children of God, we are equipped to recognize and respond to the Word of God spoken by