This morning I was lead to 1 John, and spent some great time there. So many things there that speak to denying ourselves, and to loving one another. To the false teachings of then, and today. To those then just like today who wanted everything, the best of both worlds, and the preachers that lead them astray, forming religion combinations that worked for their ministries. Their is only one way, and it is not by any other than acceptance of the blood of Jesus, the Son of God, who lived here on earth, died for your sins, raised from the dead, and provided the pathway into eternal paradise with Him. How could we not see that God through that, is a God of love?
Have it both ways
1 John 4:7 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 epistle of John speaks of the love of God 46 times in only five short chapters. Love is presented in both exhortation, and condemnation for false teachings. John is concerned about the false teachers that are intertwining different beliefs into the Gospel of Christ, and leading many astray for an eternity. There are many of those today whom only preach what is convenient to their ministry, and therefore lead many astray just as they did thousands of years ago. We have a tendency to want everything, settling for nothing less than the best of both worlds. But that simply is not biblical, for our time hear is temporal. 1 John 2:15 “Do not love this world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”
1 John 1:6-7 “ 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.” We are surrounded by the idealistic notion of self centeredness. That nothing comes before us, and we leave in our wake a pathway of pain. We cannot live in open or secret sin, and claim to have fellowship with Christ. We must present ourselves as a sacrifice to God, and all that comes with that sacrifice, and all that must die to that sacrifice. My pastor closed a sermon recently about a town drunk, and his anger and disappointment in him in his roller coaster ride as a Christian. But he clearly heard the voice of God tell himself, “his sins are only more visible.” May we all strive to walk in the light, as He is in the light.
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