Monday
I John 3.24a “The one who keeps God’s commands lives in Him, and He in them.”
John has a lot to say about keeping God’s commands. We are called to live in the light, to walk in the way of truth, and to be energised by the life of God. Christian life is a grace-enabled work of obedient love and grateful obedience. Mutual indwelling is to share the life of God, to know ourselves surrounded by, and energised by the reality of God. Such an intermingling of grace and obedience has no possibility of counterfeit. The evidence is established by a life lived in the truth and love of God.
Tuesday
1 John 3.24b “And this is how we know that he lives in us. We know it by the Spirit he gave us.”
The Holy Spirit is God’s guarantee that we are God’s children. The Spirit was the gift of the risen Jesus to his followers: Jesus breathed on his disciples and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” The work of the Spirit is to explain and make known the truth of God in Jesus, to strengthen and reassure the believer’s heart, and to be the real presence of the risen Christ in our lives. “I will not leave you on your own”, Jesus promised. “Lo I am with you always, to the end of the age and the ends of the world.”
Wednesday
1 John 4.1 “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.”
Not everyone who says they speak the truth of God is to be trusted. John is encouraging a clear principle for each Christian community. No one person has a monopoly on the truth, or the say so over what is believed or practiced in the life of a church or Christian fellowship. “Test the spirits” is strong guidance’. Each community must discern where the truth lies, and where truth ends and lies begin! In the tests of whether a spirit or word is from God, John gives clear criteria based on what he has already said: “God is light and in him is no darkness at all.”
Thursday
1 John 4.2 “This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,”
For Christan minds and hearts, Jesus is the be all and end all of the truth about who God is, and what God commands. Jesus, who dwelt amongst us, is the eternal Word made flesh. He is the embodied truth of God’s purpose for creation and humanity. There were those in John’s day who debunked the idea that Jesus was God’s Son in the flesh. But John knew what was at stake. God’s redeeming love is fully expressed and accomplished in the birth, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus the Saviour. It is the Holy Spirit who enables the confession “Jesus is Lord.”
Friday
1 John 4.3 “but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.”
Opposition to, and misrepresentation of Jesus and his followers, have been the cost of faithfully following Jesus ever since the earliest days of the church. Jesus warned of such persecution and denial of him. The spirit of antichrist is around whenever Christ is maligned, or Jesus is dismissed as a failed messiah now irrelevant in the harsh realities of life in the world. If we are being ridiculed, ignored, or even persecuted for living and speaking our faith in Jesus, we are doing something very right! And the courage to do that comes from, you guessed it, the Spirit of God.
Saturday
1 John 4.4 “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.”
“He that is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” So the praise song goes, and the jaunty tune and rest assured tone captures exactly the confidence-instilling words of Apostle John. The spirit of antichrist is formidable, but the spirit of Christ prevails in those who “are from God.” ‘More than conquerors’ is Paul’s phrase, but here John describes the battlefield and the certainty of victory in the ongoing conflict between the hostile world and the followers of the crucified and risen Christ. Christian assurance in the face of the spirit of antichrist is founded on the sure and unassailable truth that in Jesus Christ all the strategies of sin, death and untruth are already defeated. “Fought the fight the battle won! Alleluia!”
Sunday
1 John 4.4 “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.”
Take time to hold this verse long enough to begin to grasp the immensity of what it says to you, and every Christian under pressure. “You are from God.” “He that is in you is greater…” You are indwelt by the love and light and truth of God in Christ. You follow a risen Christ; you are held within the eternal purpose of God; you are a child of God and the subject and object of God’s redeeming love. “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” John the pastor is no ‘There, there, it will be all right’ pronouncer of platitudes! This is theological reassurance anchored in the truth of who God is.
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