2002-01-01
Good Morning Faithful Readers,
In my last message you will remember that 1JN 5:7-8 told us, “There are three witnesses [about Christ] : the Spirit, the water, and the blood. And the Spirit Himself testifies that this is true, because the Spirit is truth.” Today’s passage, 1JN 5: 9-12, enlarges on this. “We believe man’s testimony; but God’s testimony is much stronger, and He has given this testimony about His Son. So whoever believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his own heart; but whoever does not believe God, has made a liar out of Him, because he has not believed what God has said about His Son. The testimony of this: God has given us eternal life, and this life has it’s source in His Son. Whoever has the Son has this life; whoever does not have the Son does not have life.”
I don’t apologize for going back to Romans for clarification on spiritual issues, because it is the greatest treatise on these matters in the Scriptures. God inspired Paul to write such an explanation of the difference between believers and those who are not in RO 1: 18-21. “God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all the sin and evil of the people whose evil ways prevent the truth from being known. God punishes them, because what can be known about God is plain to them, for God Himself made it plain. Every since God created the world, His invisible qualities, both His eternal power and His divine nature, have been clearly seen; they are perceived in the things that God has made. So those people have no excuse at all! They know God, but they do not give him the honor that belongs to Him, nor do they thank Him. Instead, their thoughts have become complete nonsense, and their empty minds are filled with darkness.” The result of this mind-set is revealed in (25), “They exchange the truth about God for a lie; they worship and serve what God has created instead of the Creator Himself, Who is to be praised forever! Amen.” Let me give the meat of this important passage in other words. Unbelievers suppress the truth. They all do this. They have no excuse for doing this for two reasons. 1) They were born with a God-consciousness. That means all people are born with the understanding that some entity greater than themselves created them and the orderliness of the universe. 2) They were born with the ability to perceive what God has created. Even someone has handicapped as Helen Keller, who was deaf, dumb, and blind, has the capability to learn to perceive God’s creations. Therefore, there is no excuse for them to reject God. The only explanation for them doing that is misuse of their God-given free agency and falling heir to the temptations and deceptions of the evil one.
JN 3: 36 puts the principle of today’s 1JN 5 passage very succinctly. “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever disobeys the Son will not have life, but will remain under God’s punishment.” We all have to remember that God is not thumbing His nose at us and telling us we are useless and stupid when the same principle is repeated many times in the Scriptures. Quite the contrary, He is telling us this is so important that I want you to hear it again and again “until it is written on your hearts.” This concept of “my law written on your hearts” is repeated so many times in both the OT and the NT that I’m convinced that God sees us as often stubborn and greatly in need of receiving the direction that emphasizing His main teachings affords us. He also knows that we are constantly being assailed with spiritual warfare from the adversary and his followers. We need that direction as a part of being equipped to deal with the lies, temptations, and deceptions put in our path by the forces of evil.
We also need this direction as an encouragement not only to keep our own faith, but to engage in faith-building with others. In this last regard, we need to be reminded of the two parallel truths of God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility to respond to it. It is God’s sovereignty to grant or to take life. That is why I personally am having a big problem with such issues as abortion, executions, and certain aspects of genetic engineering. We are so blessed that our loving Abba has seen fit to offer His Son so that those of us who use their free agency to choose to believe in Him have access to eternal life. JN 3: 16, “For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but have everlasting life.” RO 3: 24-25, “But by the free gift of God’s grace all are put right with Him through Christ Jesus, Who set them free. God offered Him, so that by His death He should become the means by which people’s sins are forgiven through their faith in Him.” Our responsibility to respond to this propitiatory gift (gift which satisfies God’s need for a once and sufficient sin offering for man’s iniquities) is to believe, trust, obey, thank, praise, honor, adore, and glorify God. While not simple for us, it’s what we should do. Nothing really valuable does come to us easily. But something of the greatest of all value has been given to us as an undeserved gift, Jesus Christ’s death on the cross, so that we might life eternally! That, Dear Ones, is my testimony to you. We are truly a loved and blessed people.
PRAYER: O Lord, no matter how many times we hear the same messages in the Scriptures, we should not come to the conclusion that You have stopped loving us or think we are too stupid to learn them. You love us so much that You want us to “write these messages forever on our hearts,” because You know they are the only way for us to come back to You and remain in eternal joy and fellowship with You. We have been created to believe in You and to obey You. There are no excuses for us to reject You. No matter what difficulty we face in our daily lives, You stand ready to help us if we will only seek Your guidance. It is our responsibility to believe the testimony You gave to Christ’s ability to grant us eternal life over the rejections taught by the evil one and his followers. It was Your sovereign decision to love us so much that You sacrificed Your own beloved Son on the cross, so we could have a chance to come to faith and live eternally. We are not only to believe, but we are to engage in faith-building attitudes and activities with others, so that they will open their hearts to the Holy Spirit. While only the Holy Spirit brings newcomers to faith, we can certainly make His work easier for Him by what we do. We dedicate ourselves in humble adoration to being faithful, getting rid of sin discovered in continuing self-evaluation without guilt, and to setting an example to others that demonstrates how very blessed our lives are when we have true faith. To You belongs the glory, praise, thanks, and our worship eternally. In Christ’s name, amen.
Tomorrow, we will look at 1JN5: 13-17, which deals with encouragement to believe in eternal life and prayer. What a book of hope and encouragement 1JN really is! When we feel downtrodden and like we are about to lose our hope, we can always reread it’s precious words to help us deal with that. When you love the word of God as I do, you need never feel that life on earth or the devil will emerge victorious. We are tent-dwellers here, eagerly awaiting our call to come home. It is a home where our Lord and Savior has prepared a place for each of us who endure in faith, not as His slaves, but as joint-heirs to rule with Him. Whatever trials and challenges we must face in this temporary home on earth are more than worth enduring, so that we can all be together some day in our permanent home with the Lord Who loves us all so dearly.
Be Blessed in Christ Today and Always,
Lynn