nd the point of the last five commandments is to deal severely with the well developed sense of pride and selfishness all we sinners have. Each of them direct us to abstain from the chief sins that are a result of the pursuit of our personal, Godless agendas.

“You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife; and you shall not desire your neighbor’s house, his field, his male servant, his female servant, his ox, his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”

The first murder was done in anger, of course, but we’ve determined already that pride had to do with it. One who is not God-centered in his view of himself and the world will exhibit tendencies to react sinfully, and absolutely selfishly to the impact of his actions and those of others. The impact of Cain’s actions, along with what happened to Abel, grew hatred and jealousy in Cain. I envision Cain stewed in God’s rejection of his sacrifice, hating how his brother was “better than him” and that Abel had done well in God’s sight.

Here’s the catch.

We tend to get spun up, jealous, angry and vengeful when we are caught in the wrong and try to defend our actions to ourselves and others. We become defensive and spiteful when we perceive our reputation or character is slighted, especially if we have done wrong. Our status, our pride is our most prized possession. We’ll fight like cornered cats to protect our self image, regardless of the validity of the real or perceived attack.

Children react and move more overtly than adults, but they haven’t developed the incredibly efficient circuitry to really spin up that jealousy whirlwind that so consumes adults. Kids are raw force, where adults are calculating, patient and careful. That being said, the process from jealousy to its fruits is very apparent in kids. Adults tend to bottle everything up, conceal and essentially protect themselves from being “caught on tape” most of the time (though in current society, adults seem to be leaning more toward the childish version).

We can see the process best in school age kids, I think. When one is praised out of a group, that child tends to become ostracized by the others. This is especially true if that one child was the only one doing the right thing or if the praise is repeatedly focused toward that one. The term “teacher’s pet” is used in the adult world today, but without quite the vicious connotation as in elementary school. The teacher’s pet was frequently the nerd, outcast or goody-goody that most kids hated because he was better than they were (or at least perceived to be so). Though superiority wasn’t always the case, often it would be. The pet did things the right way, according to the standards.

I read Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card, and there is a lot of use of this effect for purpose. Ender, the main character, is a 7 year old boy who has been selected to be the greatest military strategist and commander in history. He’s been monitored since he was a baby by the military to see if he had the mental prowess, the moral character and all the other things it would take to be a great general (or admiral, as space stuff is usually considered naval in nature).

On his first day, heading off in a rocket to the military combat school, the first thing his sponsor did was isolate him. Ender was immediately able to grasp the nature of null gravity, and was the only one of all the kids on the rocket to do so. This would’ve been fine and dandy, with no issues, but the commander on the flight noticed it and not only called Ender out in praise for his superiority, but also chided the other children in comparison to Ender. This served to isolate Ender and make all the other kids begin the trip to despising him.

The intent of the commander was very purposeful. Ender, if isolated, would come to rely only on himself for success, and would grow independently from the others. And Ender was exactly the superior mind and spirit that the commander praised on the ship. This public praise and comparison to other kids was repeated a few other times in the battle school while Ender and the other kids were being trained.

All this, both Ender’s excellence and the special treatment from the military directors of the school, served to alienate him from nearly every other kid. He became the best combatant, the best tactical leader and even the best teacher in the entire school, and the jealousy abounded. Especially, the older kids who were around 12 or 13 years old, about to graduate and far more seasoned than Ender, could not abide Ender’s superiority. They hated him. They despised him and were jealous beyond petty rivalry.

Near the end of the Ender’s time at the school, several of the boys, led by one who was in the lowest bracket of intelligence and talent in the school, plotted to ruin Ender. They did the standard bully-in-the-locker-room routine and intended to beat him up real good. They wanted to restore their superiority in their minds and in Ender’s, and make sure everyone knew they were better than Ender.

It didn’t work out. Ender had learned a lot (this was about 3 years into his training), and in his isolation (he’d figured out that the leaders introduced and tolerated this mean stuff on purpose), he had realized that if he could only rely on himself for survival or success, that he needed to become absolute in his dealings with challenge.

So rather than try to run (impossible anyway), Ender coldly calculated the battle with the older boys, manipulated the leader so that it would be a one-on-one fight (usually bullies like the “hold him while I hit him” tactic) and proceeded to savagely defeat his opponent. Ender’s philosophy of this fight was simply to win the fight and then win all the other future fights all at once, right here, because he might never get another chance at a face to face scenario. So he was vicious, ruthless and exacting in his fighting. He ended up killing his opponent, though he didn’t know it.

It’s a very sobering story. It’s also extremely important to consider for many reasons. I recommend reading the whole book.

But let’s start with a little bit on temptation:

“Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death. James 1:12-15″

The culture in which we live today is one of murder, or at least one of potential murder. We live in a spiral of death, of annihilation. All things not of God lead to destruction. At some point, every act of murder, adultery, theft, false witness and jealousy boils down to a root of selfishness. Eventually, every product of selfishness boils down to a result called murder. Pride, or selfishness, is the source, for we are all too self-righteous, self-centered and self-promoting to even consider acts of God’s righteousness on our own. And all of those unholy qualities lead to death. We cannot ignore this.

Here’s a truth. I believe in the concept of total depravity. I lean toward Calvinism in my understanding of God (through experience with God, not assent to Calvin, just in case there’s another label-hater reading). All people are depraved. They don’t have a shred of Godliness in them. I do not mean absolute depravity, though, in which each of us is the complete fulfillment of the potential depravity we can reach. That’s silly. God would’ve wiped the slate and done away with us all were we all absolutely depraved. But the fact that we are not absolutely depraved right now does not eliminate the possibility that we could proceed on the course to the depths of our miserable natures. There are plenty of horrid examples of the absolute depraved potential of people in the news and in history.

Here’s what happened to the boys in the battle school. They were left to themselves with no moral guidance. There was no lesson in cohabitation with other people other than the fact that the children were made to live together and work together. The leaders who emerged were either those who had an innate sense of social conduct or were of the old warlord stock, with all the bullying, manipulation and coercive skills needed to make a functional team out of chaos. There was no God, no representative of God (church community, fellowship, pastor, Bible) to bridge the gap between depravity and the concept of Godliness.

When left to its own devices, sin becomes consuming, eventually all-consuming, and devours our potential goodness (that which God finds pliant to His will). Sin, specifically what I believe is the root Sin of selfishness, becomes the center of our lives and eventually leads to destruction. As the unsaved world is heading toward ultimate destruction, individual lives are constantly, by ones and twos and even whole groups, already meeting that destruction, daily.

I sympathize with Ender, of course, as most would who have read the book. Ender was special in that he had an extremely overwhelming gift of intellect and the capability to understand things in his youth that adults have trouble grasping in their age and experience. Ender was a genius and not one of the autistic variety or idiot-savant. He was a fully functional mastermind, even in his youth.

His family was a perfect training ground in moral or social dilemmas. His brother and sister were just as fantastically gifted as he was. The difference between the three was critical, though. Ender’s brother was devoid of moral character (I know this is a fuzzy term, but bear with me). Ender’s sister was immensely sensitive and sympathetic.

The brother was vicious and manipulative. He intuitively knew the weaknesses of people and understood the methods by which he could control people via their characteristics. The sister was just the opposite, able to get what she wanted, motivating people by playing on their sympathies and desires and being able to use collaboration in order to create results that not only satisfied her, but served her subject as well. One sibling was a controller and the other was a builder.

Ender was torn between these two. The brother hated him. The sister adored him. Neither was able to truly manipulate Ender as they could others, since Ender was their mental equivalent. The sister protected Ender from brother, and brother tormented both. This, I think, is Ender’s sole source of any moral “conscience” in the book. In the battle school, he despises the way the military commanders manipulated him into isolation and allowed the crises of bullies and other insanity to build Ender into the warrior they wanted. Ender hated the rivalry that became murder around him, and absolutely hated the conflict between people, the way others related to him and each other in a context of superiority, dominance and reputation. Ender was the best humanistic attempt at Christian character that could be devised without God.

Unfortunately, Ender is a false presentation. A sinner, left to his own devices, like Ender, is not going to get anywhere. Sure, everything may look like cake and ice cream, but hell still awaits, arms wide and appetite unsatisfied. Humanity lauds the self-motivated, self-reliant man. He who can make moral decisions and attain success, be kind, considerate and wise on his own is the ideal man. Ender’s Game supports this idea that independence and excellence are the goal for mankind.

Christians must know that this is a false reality. We cannot depend on ourselves for anything. We cannot trust ourselves as Ender grew to trust himself, or as the other characters in the book trusted Ender (at the end). We have but one trustworthy source of become the ideal man.

So the rabbit trail has petered out (no pun intended).

God is opposed to murder. We are, as a race, agreeing with Him in word, but not in truth. Our selfishness breeds hate, every time. 1st John 3:14-15 puts everything clearly, not as a proclamation, but as a statement of FACT.

“We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.”

God told us not to murder. We should realize that the Ten Commandments are written as if a classroom rules list for little children. To understand God and His ways, and then understand the world’s mode of operation we should ultimately grasp that, properly, we have no need to adhere specifically to the Ten Commandments. Get this: I am not saying we can ignore them but that we advance from the simple (see spot run) to the real concept behind the Commandments and thereby keep them not as rules but as a comprehensive way of life because of our New Nature In Christ. We should know, must know, that our sin leads to death. Not just our own death, but the death of our relationships, the death of other people, the death of our effects, everything either in one or two aspects or all at once.

Self-righteousness leads to Jealousy leads to anger leads to action leads to destruction leads to guilt leads to Self-righteousness leads to Jealousy leads to anger leads to action leads to destruction.

There are all sorts of variations of this model, but they’re all essentially the same.

• Covet = hatred
• Theft = hatred
• infidelity = hatred
• Hatred = murder

They all boil down to the concentrated base ingredient: selfishness and they all result in the same distilled product: death.

The opposite of this, what Ender needed, what all the other children needed in the book, was Christ. They, We, need the insertion of the only opposing element to our natures. We need God’s nature impressed over our own. God does not act in ungodly ways, is righteous and loving and absolute. We must understand, accept and pursue His nature, replacing our miserable absolutes with His divine absolutes. Only then can we adhere to the spirit of the Ten Commandments. The goal should be to outgrow the simplistic, codified List of do/don’t do items and live in the real, fundamental commands Christ provided for our New Option, abiding in Him.

“Then one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that He had answered them well, asked Him, ‘Which is the fist commandment of all?’

“Jesus answered him, ‘The first of all the commandments is “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the LORD is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these.’” Mark 12:28-31″

hould Christians obey the Ten Commandments? There are all sorts of confusing debates around today about this. Many discussions center around our freedom from the Law. Our Christian Liberty and all that stuff. I would like to make simple statements that clarify it, at least for me. The Ten Commandments are codified basic identifications of God and His people. Any Christian who denies the facts resident in each of the Ten Commandments is operating on completely flawed circuitry.

I sort of grouped the first part of 5 in with all that stuff in 4. Though it’s sort of skipping around, it all works out. This part of 4 is just dealing with the first two that are in 5, which are so important that Moses spent a considerable amount of time on speaking on them separately.

Idolatry is still around today, and it is harder and harder to find someone who assents to the following and then actually proceeds to adhere to it:

“You shall have no other gods before Me.

“You shall not make for yourself a carved image — any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. (Deuteronomy 5:7-8)”

Granted, not too many people are about with soapstone and file making mini-gods or buying golden cattle from local idol dealerships.

I’ll be everyone will guess what I’m going to say next.

Try these on for size:

• Work
• Car
• Clothing
• Social events
• Sports
• Computers
• Appearance
• House
• Neighbors’ opinions
• Politics
• Money

What we do with our lack of money has a tendency to govern our lives as much as if we had excess. The lack of any of these can be just as devastating and idolatrous.

We have ready made gods here on the crust that are just waiting for us to adore and serve them. Is it any surprise in our “I got it” culture that we don’t actually have to go out and carve our deities from raw material? And the amazing thing is that our new and improved idols are interactive. Rocks don’t speak, but computers do. Our money blesses us and curses us as we worship it.

Here’s more Deuteronomy:

“Take Careful heed to yourselves, for you saw no form when the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of any figure: the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth or the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground or the likeness of any fish that is in the water beneath the earth. And take heed, lest you lift your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, you feel driven to worship them and serve them, which the Lord your God has given to all the peoples under the whole heaven as a heritage. (Deuteronomy 4:15-18)”

What is in creation is God’s creation. He’s expressly forbidden worship of any element in creation. Furthermore, at the beginning of this passage, God has explained this as well by asserting that He is Spirit, not a physical object. So we’ve now covered all of tangible and visible things. Can’t worship them.

Christians are in a tight place. By God’s standards, we are incapable of doing anything without His help. Therefore, left to our own devices, we’re bound to fall into idolatry. We’ll worship anything that moves (or doesn’t), from our kids to our spouses to our bosses and even our pastors. We’ll bend knee to our pastimes and jobs, all the while thanking God for His benevolence in giving us these things.

Worse of all things is self. We don’t need anything outside our little bodies (that He made) to worship. We worship our own ideas, our own successes, our beauty, our uses of our bodies, any aspect of the physical and mental us.

Being the victim is the ultimate subversive form of idolatry. We all tend revel in our miserable state. We compare our imperfection, our admitted need to those who “flaunt” their greatness and call ourselves better than them. Idolatry.

Okay. Enough of the dark stuff.

Here’s what we need to do: I noted a few sentences back that we are incapable of doing anything without God’s help. This ties back into my reading in 1st John (the whole book, but here is an excerpt that I think bears quite well).

“This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that “God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. (1st John 1: 5-7)”

“Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, ‘I know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked. (1st John 2:3-6)”

If we turn our eyes not to our selves, not to our things, not to our world, not to the stars, but to Him and keep our gaze fixed upon Him we will know the true worship of the only true God. We will not stray to these other gods which beg and plead most attractively for our devotion. That’s the practical.

It’s the Bible, in its entirety that reveals what God is, and what idolatry is. The Commandments God has given us, the Ten as well as the Great Two, and everything in between, are laws that do not condemn Christians, but serve as the track upon which we walk from day to day. If we find ourselves feeling accused when we read the commandments of God, then we are probably due for a checkup.

We must pray to the real God for His help in avoiding worship of all things that are not Him. We must live in and through His Word to set up the walls that keep our devotion from falling off the track. We must fellowship with our brethren to ensure the track remains visible ahead of us and to keep each other on it.

o mistake in the title. I backtracked to verse 13 because I learned something. This last passage is about certainty. John started it out in 13, giving several principles for Christian certainty. I already talked about one last time, but wanted to tie all of it together. Verse 13 is a pretty cool bridge for what John wrote before and after. All through the letter, he’s given us checks and validations for our faith, our performance and our instructions. Now he’s finishing up with the guarantees, or certainty of our condition, reaching all the way back to chapter 1 in the end.

(I broke this up into sections. It’s long)

“These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.

“Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.”

Confidence is the bolstering of faith. We gain confidence and our faith grows by our actions. So when we pray for things that will please God (another way to say “according to His will”), we are acting as He would have us act. Prayer is an act of love, both love of God and love of brother. So our confidence is built up when we pray our praise, our needs, our desires for His will. And when we have love in our hearts, we will never run out of things to pray for.

God hears every single prayer. Note that there’s no guarantee that He’ll answer (act on) every single prayer as we’ve put it to Him. Though we pray in regards to His will, God’s plans and purposes usually surpass our miniature little lives. We can’t always know what He’s going to do. If I pray for my daughter to grow up big and strong, and she lives a life, physically frail and often sickly, is that a failed prayer? Not necessarily. Perhaps that is not God’s will, but instead to make her faith stronger through her physical weakness, and thereby impact the faith of many others.

A real example of this is the final months of my grandmother’s life. She wasn’t well at all. Many prayed for her to recover, or have peace and comfort with no more troubles as she neared her return to the Lord. It didn’t quite go as well as I’d envisioned it would, if the Lord answered my prayers. I think Grandma didn’t have a whole lot of comfort then. But the impact of what went on during that period was incredible. My grandpa, in his regular visits to Grandma’s hospital room, got to witness to many who worked or lived there. He made friends of many of the staff, and his faithfulness to Grandma really impressed them all. God worked through Grandma’s trial (and Grandpa’s, too, for he was probably very troubled by all this sad situation), to make a great impact on the people around both of them. So I think Grandpa was strengthened, my family’s faith was grown, and Grandma probably has a whole lot of positive things to say about her last day (and I can’t wait to talk to her in heaven and find out).

“If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin which does not lead to death, he will ask and He will give him life for those who commit sin not leading to death. There is sin leading to death. I do not say that he should pray about that. All unrighteousness is sin, and there is sin not leading to death.

“We know that whoever is born of God does not sin; but he who has been born of God keeps himself, and the wicked one does not touch him.”

This next part looks kind of difficult, but it really isn’t. One might decide, based on verse 16 that there are two types of sin (mortal and not mortal). Included with the package of verses 14 through 17, this sort of determination won’t work.

So what does John mean about this sin which leads to death? I can’t remember quite when or where this conversation took place, but I was involved in a discussion concerning a particular drug-user. This person became critically ill shortly after being saved. He was unable to conquer his drug addiction. I think most of the discussion group all agreed that the very best thing for that poor person was to be reclaimed by his Lord, freed from the trap into which he’d fallen. I think this situation illustrates what John is talking about.

It is very possible for a Christian to really mess up, and get locked into the repetition of this sin. We can’t argue much about this, for the Bible is constantly warning us, reminding us and exhorting us about our sinful nature. Pick a book in the Bible and you’ll see sin within. Try Romans, of course. Read 1st John over again. Ecclesiastes will certainly drive us into that dark time of the soul where sin seems to be on all sides. The pastoral epistles (Timothy and Titus and such), are full of instructions for leaders concerning combating that constant sin. Not only that, but those books in particular make very strong orders to the leaders, reminding them of their qualifications and conduct, which is a powerful indicator that though sin is defeated, it is still here among us, with very powerful death-throes.

So when a Christian fails, falls down into sin and gets himself into so much trouble that there is no hope for him, it is entirely possible that the Lord has designed to prune the defective part. It is sad, and we certainly would not be wrong to mourn such a loss, but at the same time, for us to pray in futility for a “lost cause” is simply wasteful. This is a hard instruction, but if we look at it from God’s perspective, we know that when He says “ENOUGH…” well, that’s it, isn’t it? Pray more ahead of time. We have the chance to catch and combat sin before it leads to death. For more reading on this serious issue, go to James 1:12-15. There’s no argument that God will, when He sees fit, bring someone home. It’s sort of like being benched, but we’re in the last quarter, so there isn’t going to be another chance to get back in the game.

All sin is unrighteousness, and if we work at it, fighting it through prayer, counseling, teaching and accountability (and LOVE), we will minimize the fatalities, for that goal is most certainly in God’s will.

The certainty we have, though, is simple. We know God answers prayer. Every time. Our faith is made more concrete through praying and receiving the answers. We have certainty that God will not only hear us, our pleas and our praises, but He will deal with them in ways far superior to the outcomes we envision.

“We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one.

“And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.

“Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.”

And John warns us very gravely that we still have to contend with the world. The whole world is corrupt, and it is constantly going to encroach on our territory. We can’t forget that we’re in the world. Our personal lives, our families, our thoughts, our habits and our churches, all those things which belong to Christ are all under attack. The world sneaks in and even barges in.

Our certainty is that the world will combat us. It’s not a fun certainty, but look at it from God’s perspective. He’s opposed to the ways of the world. Not just “against them” as though it was just His opinion, but He’s literally in opposition to the sin-coated mess we call earth. He wants it one way, and it will be so one day. If we look at it like this, it’s very clear when we’re acting in His will. The world is going to buck and bite us at every turn. That’s a very tangible certainty.

The blessing (the MIGHTY blessing) we have is that Christ’s sacrifice for us enabled us to receive the understanding of this whole equation. We can grasp the difference between what God is and what the world is. We can grasp the difference between what He wants and what the world wants. And we know what love really is, and can compare it, through our precious gift of understanding, to the world’s version of love.

And the finality? Almost too short? I love it. Makes me smile, even. It’s one of the best things John says in this really powerful letter. It’s akin to saying “mind your Ps and Qs” to the kids as you leave them with the baby sitter. Keep your hands to yourself! Keep away from those treats the wicked-witch of a world keeps offering. We get tempted, tangled, tied up and then strangled by our idols. Don’t get yourself killed by idolatry. Don’t kill your ministry, your relationships, your walk with God for those things of the world which give us only fleeting, false satisfaction.

John wants us to be free. God intends for us to be free. In the five chapters of 1st John, I’ve learned what the keys are for this freedom. The biggest key, you could call it the master key, is love. And the keys that work on that door into freedom are faith, prayer, good works, knowing God’s will, learning about Him, knowing the truth, standing for the truth, trusting in Him, believing in Him.

Look at God the right way. Look at the world the right way. Deal with sin as God would deal with sin. Pray as Christ prayed. All these things will lift our confidence, empower us to do greater things for Him and bring peace to our troubled lives.

ohn speaks of witnesses. He is a first hand witness of the Gospel in its fulfillment, and he has the backing of the three most powerful characters in history. In addition, not to be discounted, are his partners in the faith, apostles and disciples too numerous to count.

“This is He who came by water and blood — Jesus Christ; not only by water, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is truth. For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness on earth: the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree as one.

If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for this is the witness of God which He has testified of His son. He who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself; he who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of His Son. And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.

He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.”

Legally speaking, John has a pretty airtight case. He is an eyewitness of the events which unfold over this Easter weekend. He was around when the last supper was served. He was around when Christ was betrayed, dragged to court, ridiculed and tortured and finally hung up on the cross. And John was there for the resurrection. He was one of the closest in friendship with Christ (the disciple Jesus loved). This man, last one standing at the close of Scripture, had a huge weight to his words. His testimony echoes throughout history. Not only that, but his words coincide with those of all the other great apostles in the Bible. John, Paul, Peter, James, all of them are partners in the preservation of the single most important event in human experience.

But John says here that the witness of God is greater. God lent His testimony in several vital moments throughout Christ’s life and death. He witnessed with the Spirit upon Christ’s baptism.

Mark 1:10-11, “And immediately, coming up from the water, He saw the heavens parting and the Spirit descending upon Him like a dove. Then a voice came from heaven, “You are My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

This wasn’t an assumption on the part of the writers of the Bible. This was an event which was heard and seen by humans. God stepped into the frame of time and spoke, and the Spirit literally lighted upon the One to whom God spoke. No question remains that Christ was the Son of God.

Throughout Christ’s life, He referred himself and others to His Father. He pointed people to God for the source of His direction. Christ laid responsibility for His mission on God. He deferred His wishes to the Father’s in the garden before He was crucified, He commended His life to the Father when He died on the Cross

Christ, the Holy Spirit and God are the three witnesses to all of Christ’s mission. And they did not stop upon Christ’s resurrection. When Christ appeared to the disciples in Acts, He underscored His testimony. When the Spirit was poured out among the disciples at Pentecost, His testimony was part of that outpouring.

Christ witnessed to Paul in person. John met God in Heaven while he was on Patmos. Much of our New Testament is literally accounts of the actions or words of God, Christ and the Holy Spirit.

And we have that witness today. Any of us who claim Christ as our Savior, who have accepted His offer of atonement and who have made Him Lord of our lives, we have the Holy Spirit within us as constant witness. Never ever forget that the Holy Spirit is God. He is fully one third of the Trinity. We too often let that reality fade in our minds. A Christian has the Holy Spirit within them for their entire life. God is witnessing to us from the moment of our salvation until the very end of time and even then He will not stop His testimony, for He has us preserved for all eternity.

When you feel doubt. When you just can’t seem to embrace the reality of Christ, God, the Spirit, the Gospel, the Bible, Heaven and Hell in your daily life. When it just doesn’t seem real enough. When you can’t convince yourself of the veracity, of the absolute concrete Truth of all this.

Amen.

ome victory for believers here. And tests of being born again. All in one assurance package.

“Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves Him who begot also loves him who is begotten of Him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments.

“For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world — our faith.

Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”

Test first. Victory later.

Remember the audience to whom John was writing? Gnostics, right? Two things we can know about Gnostics from previous reading in 1st John are that they keep trying to deny the truth about Christ and they keep failing to keep His commandments.

How do we know this? All through the 1st through 4th chapters, John is either talking about love or about the truth of Christ. Specifically, John is telling us about loving God (and what that entails) and loving the brethren (and what that entails). And he is constantly contrasting the assent and dissent concerning Christ’s divinity. So we conclude that Gnostics were exhibiting these problems and were communicating them to others via false teaching.

Sorry, had to backtrack a little, just to bring in the focus. Two tests here. One is personal and the other is external.

We can tell false teachers by their flavor. They don’t believe the entirety of Christ’s truth. Sound doubtful that it’s really that simple? Here are a couple of my logic experiments. Works for false beliefs or false teaching.

There are plenty of them. Find a truth about God in the Bible and there’s probably a teaching that denies it. If that teaching is not contradicted in the Bible word-for-word, we can certainly consider the nature of Christ, God, the Holy Spirit and determine the truth or error of a teaching (remember the part about discerning spirits?).

The next test is the internal one, and it’s a lesson as well as a test. If we love God and keep His commandments, we will love the children of God. Simple enough. Love, God, commandments and God’s children are all tied together here. If I love my brother, I am loving God. If I keep God’s commandments, I am loving my brother. If I love God, I am loving my Brother. You can make a whole slew of if-then statements out of these four words and they’re all true.

I know I am saved if I test these statements against myself. Do I love God? If I’m saved, I will continue to love God! Do I love my brother? I am only loving my brother if I love God, so there it is again — saved. Symptom, not cause, though. Don’t think that we can fake this stuff or get into legalese banter with God. One must be true to make the others true. Truly loving God depends on our salvation.

Recap on the test. A Gnostic isn’t going to be able to keep these if-then statements. One or more (likely all) will break down eventually. Gnostics didn’t teach all this stuff, because their concept of Christ, of God, was skewed away from the Gospel. False teachers today will demonstrate the same thing.

My convoluted notes on Believing that Jesus is the Christ. A couple of days ago I wrote about the assembly of ideas tied into believing Jesus is the Christ. I think it’s good to mention again what I understand about Him in this equation.

Jesus is God. Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed one. He is the one who is the propitiation (payment) for our sins. Jesus is the Lord of every Christian’s life. Jesus is the example of Christian life.

To deny any of these, one is either confused and in need of instruction or one is not saved. How does this work? Each of the statements above are required for the salvation in the Gospel to function. How will God forgive us without sacrifice? Which sacrifice will suffice? If we are lawless and lordless before forgiveness, what are we afterward?

That was pretty simplistic, but I hope the point is clear.

On to the next part. Encouragement and victory! We love this part, right?

Building on the “not burdensome” statement. John says we’re not going to be burdened too much. That’s because we are born of God. God has already overcome the world (being the all-powerful, all-knowing Creator of everything), since nothing is out of His realm of Control. Christ did the work that defeated Satan, so we’re good to go as far as the Eternal Battle Between Good And Evil Goes (which isn’t exactly eternal, then, is it?). Based on that, we can’t doubt that no burden will overcome us. We’re on the winning team, not as in going to win, but has won. Victor’s circle is just a quick jog from the finish line.

Here’s the thing. John says first that we overcome the world if we’re born of God. Next (right after), He says, past tense, “And this is the victory that has overcome the world — our faith.” Not will, but has. Already did.

Christians, those who have their salvation, have overcome the world. We don’t usually feel like it, do we? Don’t usually act like it, either. Yesterday’s passage on comfort levels and conscience apply here. Once again, we have to continue in our faith, exercise it and believe in Christ in order to keep up our confidence. The fact remains, though, that Christ overcame the world and we join Him in that victory when we become His.

Final notes and a summary of Chapter 4.

John lets us in on a real tangible sign of growth, then recaps the bulk of everything else I’ve read so far.

“Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love Him because He first loved us.

“If someone says, ‘I love God’, and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.”

Love perfected? Surely not! Er. Bad use of Paul’s incredulous language, I suppose. Here’s the thing I understand about love being perfected in us. If you take it in context with the rest of the verse and through 19, it’s apparent this love is not connected to the world. This is the love of our Lord. Our love for our Lord. If we’ve turned to Him in repentance and faith, then we’ve clearly got to have some feelings about Him.

I’d suspect that a common Christian memory of the moment of salvation is a distinct feeling of relief.

STOP. Read it again, that last line.

————————–

————————–

Okay, did you recall that experience? (if not, think for a moment one more time)

I did, and it’s a refreshing memory. Kinda like the Mufasa thing from The Lion King, “Say it again!”

Next feeling. LOVE. What sheer love did we find in us for our new Master? I’ll tell you what. My personal feeling was like a massive fusion thing going on. I had the relief of forgiveness that surpasses all comprehension. Then I had relief of finally being able to love. Then I had the distinct sensation of love.

That middle sentence explained: I’d been battling for probably months, maybe a year or so, with the Lord. It wasn’t exactly a really quick shot from sinner to saved for me. Now that I look at it (just today, studying and writing this), I realize a longer process going on over time . I knew all about God’s love. I’d grown up with it. In 2003 I still knew about God’s love! You see, I was one of those people in 1st Corinthians 15:1-2, who didn’t hold fast, who wasn’t built up on a foundation of stone.

” Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you — unless you believed in vain.”

The Gospel was in my head for 29 years (minus the time from birth to cognizance of course), it just never made it to my heart. But I knew God. I knew Him in the fashion of a student who had grown up in the study of something fantastic but never believed. I knew God’s love, I just hadn’t experienced it. I knew what loving God entailed, I just hadn’t experienced it.

During the last months of my life, before I died to the world, I really think my hate (cold and calculating, secretive and shadowy), was fueled by this intense battle against the truth.

And, especially, against a real desire to see fixed the absolute poverty of me. I knew what to do. I defied that course, and I think the last days of it were probably a real desire to love God. Remember those days in the pre-20s when we were all lookin’ for a real true love? And that fear of expressing love? That overpowering knowledge that she was the one, yet the complete, mind-numbing blockage that kept us from saying it?

Translate that to a craving for rightness. For access to God. For His love and to love Him in return. And when I found myself at His feet? All that came tumbling down upon me, the love, the relief, the excitement and joy. Though the intensity has subsided over these few years, the fact exists. Love has been perfected in me. I love the Father. I have confidence before Him now, and will have that confidence before His throne in heaven.

Where does all that emotional garble I just pasted lead? Fear.

How, in God’s great creation, can someone who has such a love and a desire for love, and also receiving love in kind (far better in quality and quantity than my own), have any place for fear in the heart for that God? John says it simply, confidence.

We are confident in the love of our Father. Just as, when I was a kid, I had a fully trusting love and confidence in my parents, and did not fear them, but relied upon them. This is more so, for parents can fail us. God will not.

Are we now fear-proof? Can we cruise along and forget about everything else? Surely not! Fear still exists. You know it. So do I. We’re still conniving, vicious, unpleasant, selfish (insert redundant terms x10 here) people. And our fear of God is in that sin. You sin, fear of God steps in. I sin, fear of God steps in.

Sin represses that surety and security we find in Him. We cannot lose our salvation, but we absolutely will lose our confidence, our comfort and our peace of mind. This is the feeling we should be probing for. As with a sore tooth, we should be constantly prodding and poking at that sin, to prove out our pain from it. I have recently been convinced that asking God for a reinforced sense of guilt is not a bad idea sometimes. We get ingrained in our sin patterns and the conscience doesn’t always keep up with the duties (rotten sin-nature symptom).

But back to the point here. Fear of God is not a characteristic of a Christian. That fear which builds respect? I think we need a better term, for the English language uses fear for both concepts. Fear of falling off a 10,000 foot cliff and fear of a machine upon which you perform maintenance are not really the same. Christian fear of God is that fear which builds desire to please Him, glorify Him and abide in Him, for we know what we were and what that old fear was. Fear of destruction is not the same as fear of chastisement.

Wow, I’ve muddied that up pretty well. Now the disclaimer, and after that you can read about the summary.

In summary, verse 24 is quick and straightforward.

Now (listen, don’t forget, pay attention), he who keeps His commandments: Love. Love. Love. What did the Lord do three times to Peter after His resurrection? He asked for love and commanded love three times. John 21:15, 16 and 17.

Love God. Love the brethren. Love the lost.

By these actions, our ability to perform them, we know He is in us. That He abides in us and we abide in Him. The Holy Spirit, our Helper, our Counselor, our Enabler proves it.

So to end on a historical note. Shamrocks come in a standard package. 3 leaves. Three hearts. Happy Saint Patrick’s Day. Go love three people. Him, another Christian, someone who doesn’t know Him.

Amen.

etting the shower all temperature-normed (hard to do here in HotLand) and brushing my teeth this morning, I had the sudden chance to ruminate on my ill-spent weekend. Having completely wasted all of Friday afternoon and the entirety of Saturday really left me unsettled and miffed at myself. I didn’t even sleep well. So this morning I got up and started reading some of my favorite Bible related blogs just to get a fresh, easy cruising start.

But when I split for that shower-shave-teethbreesh, I had nothing but my brain running in my head.

And here is what the frequently misused gray mass told me.

I have work to do.

Yep.

That’s it. The whole horrifying answer to Life, the Universe and Everything.

I have work to do.

Have you noticed that, post salvation, that everything seems to be work? I have. Love is a thing we practice. It’s not just waiting there for us to give or receive. We have to work at it.

Forgiveness is not something there for us to simply give out. We have to exercise it.

Kindness is not a quality. It is a skill.

Humility is not a state. It is an activity.

Righteousness is not an attribute. It is a choice.

One day all these things will be synonymous with being me. 1st John confirms this in 3:2

“Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”

We know His qualities, for He told us what they were, and He demonstrated them for us here on Earth, 2,000 years ago.

But I’m not there yet. So here is the reality. Everything in my Christian life, after His Salvation is given and His Forgiveness is given, is skill. I must do, not be. I cannot be, for I am not perfected yet. I must do those things God has set before me.

1st John 3:3, “And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.”

I have to do the task of putting on the Armor of God.

“Sand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, “

I have to practice love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, discernment and, most of all, faith! None of these are handed to me (or you) on a platter, ready for us to just dig in. The Lord is right here to enable us, to give us all that we need to do the work, but He Is Not Going To Do That Work For Us. Nowhere does it say that we’re going to wake up one morning and BE anything other than His Children, forgiven and saved from eternity separated from Him. We won’t BE any of these things until He comes to bring us Home. Until then, we have to work.

James 2:14 and beyond brings up this huge quandary about works and salvation.

“What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him?”

Liken this to the baseball team you root for. If I were to get really good at baseball (in Church, we’ll call this studying my Bible and knowing it backward-forward), then go to practice for the season startup. Then, if I were to get on the team and be called a baseball player (in Church, well call this being labeled Christian). Then I just stood around and drank the Gatoraid and hung out with the guys in the bullpen, never heading out to the field (In Church we’ll call this weekend warriorism). Would I be a baseball player? Would I get my own collectible card that people would beg me to sign?

NO. I would be a bum. A fake. A sham. Nowadays, the term Loser would have me in the definition at dictionary.com.

I have to act. I have to practice. I have to continually turn around and check my work. All the qualities of a Christian are WORK. Skillsets. Christians have toolboxes. They are toolboxes. So are we empty of tools? Or are our tools rusty? They rust really fast in this rotten world of ours, and we have a tendency to let them fall out and forget they were even there.

Romans 12:1-2 “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

Notice the lack of “you are” statements in this pair of verses. It says be, but always in conjunction with an action. Be transformed by the renewing. We have to work to be transformed. Work! Practice.

List of things to do today. I have to practice (in no order of significance):

• FAITH
• TRUST
• HOLINESS
• BELIEF
• LOVE
• KINDNESS
• GENTLENESS
• GOODNESS
• SELF CONTROL
• DISCERNMENT
• JOY
• PEACE
• PATIENCE
• PRAYER
• DILIGENCE
• INTEGRITY
• LOYALTY
• PURITY

There are plenty more skills I need in my box of tools, and some just need some maintenance.

It is amazing what a weekend of wastefulness will do to that toolkit. I got my forgiveness, the only thing I’m gonna get handed to me (but I had to ask). Now to repent, practice repentance.

Get to work.

hy do we love? Why do Christians practice love? Is it because we’re commanded to love?

“No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. By this we know what we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.”

If God is invisible, how do we see Him? How does anyone see Him? This is one of those mysteries that demonstrates a couple of vital and fascinating qualities of God. God demonstrates His existence through Christians.

If you want to experience God, find His people. If you want to see God, go into His Church. That is how He is found today. God also reveals His great power through this mystery. Only God can make Himself known through His people. I cannot make myself known through my kids. If you want to see me, you can’t go hang out with my girls for a few hours and then depart with the confidence that you’ve seen me. Doesn’t work. Only God can do that with people.

This passage introduces the truth that proves Christians. We are not simply following a commandment to love, but we are loving because we are abiding in Christ. The Lord enables our love, and as we become more like Him we will (by His blessing, not by our choice) love more. We will love our brethren in the Church more and we will love our fellow men outside the Church more.

Here is the simple progression from zero to sixty in terms of love. We meet Christ and give Him our lives, accepting the forgiveness for sin and the atonement for the penalty of sin. We begin in His love and then continue in His love. As we grow in Him (which He will both enable and affect), our love will grow as well. When we are Christians, it is inevitable and fact that we will love more as long as we live on this earth. Not because God is rewarding us for our dedication to Him or because we are getting better with our Bibles and knowledge, but because God is love and if we are His children then we, too, are love.

CRITICAL in our sanctification is this idea of love. I believe we could boil down all the processes and definitions of sanctification throughout history and the result would be love.

• If we are sanctified, we are loving God.
  
  I Peter 1:16 “But as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, ‘Be holy for I am holy.’”
  • You can try to be holy all day long, but a genuine love for the Lord will propel you into a desire to be holy. There is no other motivation than that love of God and His qualities that will work. He will enable us through our love for Him.
• If we are sanctified, we are loving each other.
  
  James 2:8 “If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself,’ you do well.”
  •  We can try to love all day long, but if we love the Lord, we will move past the hypocritical, self-preservation and partiality that drives the world’s type of love into the completely sacrificial and selfless love that God has defined as the real love.
• If we are sanctified, we are loving the Word.
  
  Hebrews 4:12 “For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”
  • If we love God, we will want to see ourselves as He sees us. When we love the Word, having accepted it as God’s word and His expression of love to us, then we will seek to treat it with the honesty and fairness of love. And we will love the way it can pare the corruption from our lives and release us from our bonds to love more and more.

• If we are sanctified, we are loving our fellow man.
  
  Luke 5:31 “Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.’”
  • When we love God, we will perceive the purpose He as set for us. We will love our fellow men for God sent His Son to them to save them. Love will drive us to reach for the ungodly and bring them to Christ.

If we have known and believed the love God has for us, which is absolutely characteristic of being saved, then we will be driven to love by that love for Him. If we know love, then we partake in that love. Christians can receive and give love. That circuit is broken in the unsaved, and only God can fix it. Once the circuit is closed and the contacts are stable, then we are Christians and we will love just as God does.

Once again, as in previous passages, I feel the need to confirm that all of this is a progression. We grow, we persevere, we run the race to reach the finish. God will work in us to perfect this love, this sanctification, as we walk with Him. Don’t sweat the imperfection with impatience and frustration. Savor the gifts of love, the fine tuning and improvements God makes as they happen. We should strive for greater and greater love of Him and our brethren, but remember that it is God who makes this work. Have peace and patience as He works His miracle within us.

od is love.

He is the definition of love.

He didn’t just define it.

God is love.

God is, defines and demonstrates true love.

John wrote us another song. It goes like this:

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”

See here the very absolute definition of love. God doesn’t mold His concept of love around what we perceive as love. He set in stone the definition by demonstration.
God sent His son to live and minister among us. He set foot in this miserable, corrupt world and sought us out. Just as we do today, as humans, the people of Christ’s day refused to acknowledge His authority, His character, His message and even His actions. That is a love which we are called to emulate. We’re to live that kind of love.

The comforting sort of love, which we all expect from people who love us, is just what Christ didn’t get. Yet He loved us.

The affirming sort of love, which we all expect from people who love us, is just what Christ didn’t get. Yet He loved us.

If we are of God, then we must learn God’s definition of love. If we want to know God, the key is to know His definition of Love. It says so right here in our Bible. Our whole life is supposed to be through Him.

And not only that, but look at the key word I love so much in John’s writing: SO. Yep, short and wonderful word that little SO.

Check this out:

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

SO loved. God didn’t just love the world. He SO loved the world. He loved us SO much that He gave Christ to us. And had all knowledge of what the result of that visit to earth would be. Propitiation for our sin. Death on the cross. Atonement. Payment.

Are we willing to give our lives for this Gospel? Once again, back to the death thing. Not very likely that a modern Christian in our Western Society is going to get the stake for being Christian and preaching the Word and acting like Christ did. But that’s not the message.

Are we willing to die to our own desires? Are we willing to commit every act in His name? That is reciprocating the real love that God has for us.

Here’s the test for the week:

1. When I got mad at my coworker for being forgetful, was I loving?
2. When I spent an hour grumbling about doing someone else’s job because they were sick, was I loving?
3. When I got on the phone with the credit company and tried to scam out of a late bill, was I loving?
4. When I snapped back at that insult in the office, was I loving?
5. When I ridiculed a bad choice of wording from my boss, was I loving?

Extra Credit: Did I do these things in His Name? Was my week an example of living through Him?

God’s love is not the same as our worldly interpretation of love. This is clear if we read the Gospels through, and watch Christ’s actions and words. Paul is often disparaged by people today because of his ways and words. But Paul is an exemplary show of the love God defined. Paul’s not always much fun to read, because his words are designed to cut (Bible=sword, right?) away the junk and reveal the heart of our sin, our relationship with God, the truth about our ministry and the absolute reality of God’s love.

Don’t love your neighbor by glossing over the hurt and pain in their home. Don’t love your neighbor by ignoring the continuing sin in your own life and the impact it has on your relationship. Don’t love your neighbor by telling him everything’s all right when it’s not all right.

Love your neighbor by making sure he knows what God wants in his life. Love your neighbor by fixing the sin in your own life so you can be that example to him. Love your neighbor by telling him what’s wrong so everything can get all right.

That is the love God defines. Living testaments to the life Christ lived is exactly the way we should look to the world. Start by loving God. Love Him, His Word, His work in your life (fun or painful). Next love your fellow Christians, their sins addressed, their ministries encouraged, their discipline praised and their love reciprocated. Finally love the rest of the people in God’s creation, their need for Him revealed, their need for hurt to be mended and their need to witness Godliness met in full.

There’s your life. It just passed before your eyes. Live through Christ. Do you love Him SO much you’ll do anything for Him? Or do you love Him SO much you’ll do everything for Him?

he Automated Defense System. Christians have a very special gift from God that helps them in the face of false teachers.

“You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are not of the world. Therefore they speak as of the world, and the world hears them. We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.”

Just as we can tell a spirit’s source when they are sought to “confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh,” we can also tell by their language. A worldly source is going to speak in worldly terms (as opposed to Biblical terms). A preacher who presents a reward system for good works to his church in the form of worldly promises such as money, health, respect and whatnot, is not preaching Biblically. Our rewards for our works are to be sought in the context of, and expected to be stored up in, heaven which isn’t even spelled like world (not a single letter in common).

So we can tell by the context of preaching or even just religious discussion what a person’s foundation is made of. Now, this is not a cue to start freaking out at everyone you know. We all contextualize our thoughts and actions in the world’s terms. We make the mistakes of applying worldly values to Godly things. What this passage is saying is that a consistently world-based presentation of Biblical (theological) teaching is error, false teaching. We should constantly seek the consistently word-based presentation of Scripture in our conversations and from our preachers.

Backing up, since I got out of order. The first sentence in the passage is speaking of God. Specifically, the Holy Spirit. He is in us. He is our Promise, our Helper, our Seal of security and the source of Truth in our lives. Is the Holy Spirit not greater than anything in the world? Is the Holy Spirit, being God Himself, not greater than the devil? If this is true, then we have nothing to fear, for we have God Himself in our lives, with us wherever we go, with us whatever we hear. We are given a guarantee by The Guarantee, that we will not be led astray. Here is another test of our salvation. If the false teaching rears up in our midst, where does the flock go? The church that follows the latest false teacher is a dead church! There are not going to be many true believers in a church that picks itself up and chases a new doctrine. This is not because Christians are inherently smarter than the unbelievers, but because we’ve inherited a far smarter Counselor to keep us from the false doctrines. The unsaved, pseudo-Christians will bend and flow with the world’s currents, and will be easily snatched from the Church, in dire danger of losing their near-salvation.

Sad to say, but it is a sign of our discipleship and devotion to the truth being shoddy when we watch members of our church wandering off to the “easy-believer-church” down the street (not always our fault, of course, for unbelievers are hardly going to be positively affected by our teaching if they haven’t accepted the Gospel to begin with). Having the promise that we, as Christians, are immune to the tricks of false teaching does not entirely protect us from the effects. We can slide off, as the entire book of 1st John depicts, the main route of Truth, and into the false teaching for a time, and the return to the Lord is not necessarily going to be a quick left back to the on-ramp. For a good analogy of getting lost and trying to get back on the road, watch the movie, “Cars.” Our fellows in the Faith can suffer similar situations, and so can we (I’d certainly appreciate someone revealing false teaching to me!).

So why keep verses 1-3 if we have the cure-all of verses 4-6? I’m going to reach back to an earlier commandment John illuminates in the letter. Here’s my suggestion: Loving my brethren includes studying my Bible. Is it love if I do not take the trouble to help my fellow Christian who is facing false teaching? That stuff is attractive sometimes.

I’ve had a few friends who have been tempted toward the RCOG. If you haven’t heard of them, search out Restored Church Of God on the Web. It’s a very hard-hitting, apparently Bible-Thumping, organization, resembling a lot of Christian teaching, but close scrutiny will show…Guess! YEP. Verses 1-6 of 1st John, chapter 4 are suddenly pretty handy. Glad to say none of the pals I know from that situation stuck with that false teaching very long. The Holy Spirit helped them out. And the Lord used some of my insight in part to help that protection. My knowing the truth, from the Bible, about that particular situation and organization was beneficial work for the benefit of the brethren.

Studying my Bible helped someone else who was facing false teaching. I think that pretty much summarizes the last paragraph succinctly.

And another, final thing. When we try to preach and teach the Word, truthfully and without worldly contextualizing, it’s going to be fairly easy to figure out who is with us and who is not. The last sentence in the passage, verse 6, clearly states that whoever listens to our teaching is of God. That means that if you just….can’t….get…. that simple doctrinal truth through to someone who really needs it, then there may be a much bigger disconnect than just a misunderstanding. When repentance from sin doesn’t occur in a person’s life, no matter how much you try to explain to them their sin, their need for absolution and the need to repent, then there may not be any source of motivation for the change. If God is not in a person, no matter how “nice” or “Christian” they may appear, they are not going to hear and apply Biblical teaching. The unsaved person is, period, diametrically opposed to God. We’ve discussed this a few times already. Black and White Christianity doesn’t have fuzzy subjects.

All this is why we have the Church discipline concept as in Matthew 18:15-19, 2 Thessalonians 3:6-7 and Titus 3:10-11. We are directed to depart from, or avoid the opportunity to be misled by false teachers, potential untruth and all the other evils that can mislead us or hurt us. This is one way of practicing love for our neighbors, too. An objective observer sometimes sees more in the situation than those actually involved. A Scripturally educated observer may be able to truly discern the false teaching or worldly context at war in another person’s life and be able to lead them away from sin!

Love your neighbor: read a Bible today!