Moments With God

I John 4 and 5

The apostle John in I John chapters 4 and 5 again exhorts his fellow believers about the need to demonstrate faith in one's actions. As Christians we must not just say we are believers, but we must demonstrate that faith by our attitudes and in how we live our lives.

In I John 4 the apostle John again talks about the importance of believers being able to differentiate between false teachers and their teachings and God's truths. John instructs us as believers to "test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world." (I John 4:1b) John goes on to say , "Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God." (I John 4:2b-3a) Only teaching which is consistent with God's Word is truth. Only teaching which acknowledges Jesus Christ as the Savior of the world and God Himself is truth. Teachers who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as God "are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them." (I John 4:5) As true believers and children of God we are able to differentiate between "the spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood." (I John 4:6b) This is because the Holy Spirit lives in our hearts, and we have immersed ourselves in God's truth in His Holy Word.

In I John 4 the apostle John again talks about the importance of Christians also loving their fellow believers. John says, "Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." (I John 4:7-8) As believers we must show our love for others "because God is love." Everlasting and abundant love is consistent with who God is in His very character. Hence, as believers we need to show love in our lives. God loved us enough to send His very own Son, Jesus Christ, "as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." (I John 4:10b) God sent His Son to suffer hell on the cross for us, so we could be His children and experience eternal fellowship with Him. "Since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." (I John 4:11)

As believers in the Lord Jesus Christ one way our faith and love for God is made complete is by our love for each other. When we are complete in our love for God and in our love for our fellow believers, we are at peace and confident in our faith. Then when we are confident in our faith and relationship with the Lord, we also need to fear nothing. We are secure in Christ for time and eternity. I John 4:16b-18a says, "God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in Him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like Him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear."

In I John 5 the apostle John also again talks about the importance of believers being obedient to their Lord and being overcomers in this world. "This is love for God: to obey His commands. And His commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith." (I John 5:3-4) We as children of God try to be obedient to the Lord in every area of our lives. We fail and sin everyday, but it is our growing passion to be obedient and more and more like Jesus Christ in every area of our lives. As believers we want to be overcomers. We do not want to give in to the devil's whims and attempts to discourage us. We must instead immerse ourselves in the Scripture's truths and the Lord's strength and go on from one spiritual victory to another until we reach eternity. We know that we have eternal life in the Son of God. (I John 5:13b) We know we are eternally safe in our Lord and that that the Devil can not harm us! Praise the Lord for salvation in Him!

I John 3

Praise the Lord for the gift of salvation in our lives! Praise His name for the daily gifts of His blessing in our lives! How great is the love of the Father for us! I John 3:1 tells us that the Father lavishes His love on us! The verse does not just say that the Father gives His love to us, but it says that He LAVISHES His love on us! He does this by actually calling us His children! We, His children, have the privilege of knowing the Lord and belonging to Him! Those who do not know the Lord as their Savior can not begin to comprehend the glories and greatness of this blessing and gift from the Father.

We are already His children, "but we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." (John 3:2b) What a joy the certainty of this promise should bring to our lives. Because of the certainty of being with Jesus face to face some day we need to do all we can to live pure lives. We must ask the Holy Spirit to purify us and make us more like Jesus. We must ask the Holy Spirit to help us more and more reflect Jesus in our lives. We must ask the Holy Spirit to make us different than those who do not know and love the Lord. I John 3:9a tells us, "No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in Him." This verse is talking about habitual and deliberate sin. We all sin even as Christians, but we must not engage in deliberate and willful disobedience. A true child of God has God’s seed in him or her. A child of God is part of God’s family and will seek to always obey the Lord and to reflect the Lord in his or her life. Praise His name that we belong to Lord’s family!

Verses ten and eleven of I John 3 tells us that we obey God by doing what is right and by loving others. Verse sixteen reminds us that Jesus Christ loved us enough to lay down His very life for us. He suffered the horrors of hell on the cross to pay for our sins. In light of Christ’s great demonstration of love to us we ought to show sacrificial love to others. This is one way we can reflect Jesus in our lives! We need to love others not just in words, but our love for others must be demonstrated by our actions.

Our desire and passion must be to serve the Lord with our whole heart, and this passion and desire must be evident in our actions. If this is true in our lives, we can have confidence and approach the Lord in prayer about anything. He will then hear our prayers. "We have confidence before God and receive from Him anything we ask, because we obey His commands and do what pleases Him." (I John 3:21b-22)

We must be totally yielded to the Lord. We must demonstrate our faith by our love and obedience to the Lord and by our love for others. "Those who obey His commands live in Him, and He in them. And this is how we know that He lives in us: We know it by the Spirit He gave us." I John 3:24 Through the Holy Spirit we have the assurance of our salvation! We have the complete assurance that He lives in us and we in Him! Nothing can separate us from our salvation and the love that Christ Jesus has for us! "How great is the love the Father has lavished on us!" (I John 3:1a) Praise His name!

I John 2

"If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in Him." (I John 2:15b)

Everyone one of us sins including Christians. "If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. (I John 1:8) True children of God, however, have a deep down desire to live for the glory of the Lord. True children of God show by their attitudes and actions that they belong to the Lord. They do this by fighting against sin in their lives. (I John 2:1-2) They also show they are a children of God by seeking to be obedient to the Lord. (I John 2:3-6) Further, they show that they are true children of God by loving their fellow Christians (I John 2:9-11) and by seeking to mature in the faith (I John 2:14b)

True children of God also show the genuineness of their faith by loving the Lord God with all their heart, soul, and mind and by not loving the things of the world. The apostle John says in I John 2:15, "Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in Him." The world or worldliness is anything that causes us to lose our enjoyment of and excitement about our Lord's love for us. The love of the world or worldliness is anything that stifles our desire to obey the Lord God. Even things that are good in themselves can quickly squelch our love for the Lord, if they become more important to us than the Lord. The Lord must always be first in our lives. We must love the Lord more than our possessions. We must even love the Lore more than our dearest relationships with other people.

The apostle John goes on to say in I John 2:16 "For everything in the world-the cravings of sinful man, the lust of the eyes and the boosting of what he has and does-comes not from the Father but from the world." The cravings of our sinful hearts includes anything that appeals to our fallen sinful nature. "The cravings of sinful man" involves satisfying normal appetites in forbidden ways. "The lust of his eyes" includes sinful pleasures that gratify our sight and mind. It could include things like pornography but also things like intellectual pleasures-thinking of oneself as intellectually superior or wise according to the world's standards. "The boosting of what he has and does" includes pride and security placed in one's possessions. It also includes placing trust in one's own abilities and in what one has done in life. This misplaced trust in possessions or oneself will fail every time. The Lord desires that we depend on Him and Him alone. The Lord is the only one we can trust to get us through this life and to eternity. "The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever." (I John 2:17)

True children of God will also possess "an anointing from the Holy One" (the Holy Spirit), and they will be able to recognize the truth. (I John 2:20-21) True children of God will recognize the difference between truth and false teaching. Because true children of God seek to become immersed in the truths of the Holy Bible and because they have the Holy Spirit living in them, they can recognize false teachers or antichrists. An antichrist is anyone "who denies that Jesus is the Christ." It is anyone who "denies the Father and the Son." (I John 2:22) An antichrist is anyone who denies that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, God Himself. True children of God will not be lead astray by false teaching or teachers; because their "anointing" from the Holy Spirit "is real, not counterfeit." They also remain steadfast in their faith and in the Lord to the end. (I John 2:27) True children of God will be full of joy when the Lord returns. They will be "confident and unashamed before Him at His coming." (I John 2:28b) May it always be our passion to please the Lord and show our faith in Him in our every day walk on this earth! Only in the Lord can we find joy and peace in this life and in eternity.