1 John 2: 24-29 Sing a New Song!

1 John 2: 24-29  As for you, see that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you.  If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father.  And this is what he promised us—eternal life.  I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray.  As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you.  But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him.  And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming.  If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him.  

And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.  Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.  I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.  (1 John 5:11-13)  We know the disciples gave up everything to have this eternal life that comes through faith in Jesus Christ.  At first as all people do who operate in the flesh, they probably thought only about themselves and their immediate futures.  Because of Jesus’ supernatural powers and because of his deep and powerful sermons, many people followed him.  As Jesus’ inner circle, the disciples became prominent people.  Surely, Judas first then most of the disciples initially thought being with Jesus was heady stuff, and maybe something good could come for them if they stayed close to him.  At times, they were given supernatural powers.  They were not only Jesus’ companions and sometimes bodyguards, they were also ministers when Jesus would ordain them.  Jesus called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.  (Matthew 10:1)  As they walked with Jesus under his direction, they saw and experienced many miraculous things.  To hang onto Jesus, undoubtedly was beneficial for their own esteem and popularity.  Probably, many people envied their access to Jesus and their camaraderie with him.  By being close to him, they imagined they were riding Jesus’ coattails to fame and power.  However, as they walked with Jesus, a different perspective of their future begin to emerge. They began to realize Jesus’ coattails might end up in physical death for them.  Jesus’ talk about his imminent death must have been very scary.  In fact, they did not want Jesus to go back to Jerusalem because they knew the authorities wanted to kill him.  But Jesus seemed to have a death wish, for that is exactly where He went.  When Jesus was captured, the disciples scattered.  At the time of the capture, Peter wished to defend Jesus by pulling out a sword.  With great anger against the mob’s intentions, he decided to defend Jesus to the death, but Jesus would not allow him to do that.  Jesus said, Put your sword away!  Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?  (John 18:11)  By putting up his sword, how could the kingdom of God come to earth?  How could Jesus take his rightful place on David’s throne?  How could righteousness rule on earth if the Righteous One is put to death?  How could the Romans be dispelled from Judaea?  Peter believed as all people from the beginning of time have understood implicitly and explicitly, earthly power can only be established or defended by the sword.  But Jesus threw a clinker into Peter’s understanding of power by telling him to put up his sword.  Jesus went with the mob as a lamb goes to his slaughter, without a fuss.  John and Peter followed the angry crowd into the High Priest’s courtyard—an environment so dangerous to their wellbeing that Peter eventually denied he knew Jesus.  Peter knew his life was threatened by a powerless servant girl who identified him.  He fled that scene with tears of remorse.  To be in a  prominent, privileged position in Jesus’ magnificent Kingdom on Earth was a dream to seek, but to be hauled before Jesus’ adversaries, facing death, was not in Peter’s itinerary.  

The full realization of what Jesus taught came to the disciples on Pentecost.  Then they understood Jesus’ ministry and his intentions to establish a future kingdom.  He did not organize his followers to take this earthly kingdom by force; instead, He taught about another kingdom not made by human hands.  His Sermon on the Mount spoke of another dimension, a place where God abides, where all who live a godly life, sensitive to the plights of others, would receive heavenly rewards beyond their imaginations.  When the Spirit of God fell on them in full measure after Jesus’ death, they caught the vision that life eternal in God’s Kingdom was theirs if they endured to the end by faith.  They now realized Jesus presented them with eternal life, not a kingdom on Earth, and they willingly gave up their lives for this message.  As for you, see that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you.  If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father.  And this is what he promised us—eternal life.  Often, Christians view their lives through a lens that is not biblical.  They perceive a Christian life to be one of happiness, peace; lacking fear or anxiety.  But this is not the life that the Bible paints.  Even Jesus said, So when you see standing in the holy place “the abomination that causes desolation,” spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand—then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.  Let no one on the housetop go down to take anything out of the house.  Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak.  How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers!  Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath.  For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again.  (Matthew 24:15-21)  Can you feel the fear of those who are fleeing.  Can you hear the cries of the babies, and the panic in the voices of men and women.  Fear is part of this prophesy.  We are not to be people without fear or anxiety; we are to be people who believe God will never abandon us.  We see the early church running for their lives because of the persecution in Jerusalem.  We see them spreading the Good News as they were fleeing for their lives.  We see Paul talking about his anxieties, his distresses in and out of the church, his fears as he went from city to city.  He never knew if bandits would rob him or if he would be beaten and maybe killed in the next town because of the message of the Good News.  A Christian life is not free from anxieties and distresses, but a Christian life has an abiding Comforter and Counselor.  As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you.  But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him.  Because of the cleansing blood of Jesus, a Christian is known as a temple of God or a place where the Holy Spirit abides.  We have access to the voice of God in our inner beings.  This voice should bring us comfort when we cannot find comfort in the things of this world.  All of us experience events and happenings in our lives that we cannot control.  As members of the human race, we are attuned to the vicissitudes of life.  As new creatures IN CHRIST, He is always with us and his voice is always in us.  And as we are comforted, we share that comfort.  Paul wrote about the God of all comfort who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.  (2 Corinthians 1:4)

And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming.  John encourages us to remain in Christ regardless of what is happening to us on this earth.  Jesus did not come to set up a kingdom on Earth, a place where you can abide in a peaceful state, free from all distresses and trials.  We know the Bible does not present such a picture for Christians.  As we read the New Testament, even Jesus, the Son of God, experienced troubling times.  The sweating of blood in the Garden, the cry on the cross about God, his Father, abandoning him: Jesus experienced these trials and we are not greater than He.  Jesus said, Remember what I told you: “A servant is not greater than his master.  If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also.”  (John 15:20)  Yes, life can be hard and sometimes enduring to the end in strong faith seems especially difficult.  But, dear friends, that is when we need to know the Holy Spirit’s voice inside us.  That is also when we need others in the Christian faith to help us live successfully through our difficulties, to bring comfort, to bring God to us, to help us hear his voice.  We need each other!  We need a song of God in our hearts.  The psalmist wrote: He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.  (Psalm 40:3)   What is a Christian’s life all about?  The believer’s foundation is that God came down to Earth to abide in people.  Jesus, the Son of Man, walked on Earth, performing marvelous miracles, changing countless lives, and teaching the mysteries of God.  The Son of Man’s death and resurrection created sons and daughters who live by faith and inherit eternal life, forever to abide in the presence of Abba Father.  We never should forget the essence of Christianity: eternal life has come to us through Christ.  We are new creatures who will abide in the household of God forever.  Therefore, what trial, what dispute, what disappointment can keep us from winning this place of victory, our promise of an eternal home.  Nothing can persuade us to abandon Jesus—He is the lover of our souls; He has rescued us from damnation.  We are heaven bound, and we can say with Paul, Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness that the Lord has promised to all who love him.  (2 Timothy 4:8)  Amen!  

1 John 2:18-23 Crowned with Glory!

1 John 2:18-23  Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come.  This is how we know it is the last hour.  They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us.  For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.  But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth.  I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth.  Who is the liar?  It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ.  Such a person is the antichrist—denying the Father and the Son.  No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.

As we see in the above scripture, some people were leaving the community of believers because of aberrant ideas, holding the belief that Jesus was not really the Christ, the Messiah, the Holy One.  They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us.  For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.  The understanding that Jesus Christ is the cornerstone of the church remains necessary to the fellowship of believers.  If a person tries to replace this foundational fact with other truths, he or she is moving into the antichrist realm.  Yes, religion can be positive, can do good things, but religion alone will not break the bondage of this world.  Only the blood of Jesus will bring power to enter the kingdom of God.  For the blood appeased the wrath of God on sin.  Everything that is not like God has to be covered by the blood, the propitiation for a wayward creation.  The sacrifice on the cross for sinful men separates the world and the antichrist spirit from Christianity.  People will accept a general belief that there might be a God who started life on Earth.  They even might desire to believe in a supernatural designer behind life.  Their beliefs may include life on the other planets or in the cosmic ethereal, but they stumble to believe that there was a man called Jesus who was the personification of God who performed many healing and supernatural events.  He interrupted the natural processes of diseases and caused the flesh to be restored to health.  He even raised the dead.  He stopped the natural flow of the environment, interfering with the wind and the waves.  His miracles not only affected biological man, but also the environment.  This belief goes too far for many who would like to consider him a great teacher or even a spiritual guru, but they do not want to consider him as the Son of God.  John says, those people who were once in their midst are liars, for the Holy Spirit within the community of believers has revealed clearly that Jesus was and is the Messiah.  Who is the liar?  It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ.  They are liars, and their need to leave the Christians is for their own fleshly desires.  Over the millenniums since Christ dwelt on Earth, many people have come out from the believers, claiming to be the Christ.  Others have come out to form religious groups, attacking the divinity of Christ.  Some claim that Jesus is just one of the many Christs.  Others leave the Christian encampment for their own self-engrandisement, claiming that Jesus is merely a created being, no more exceptional than the creation of any other human that people lift up as important.  These self-serving men and women are carrying these claims to counter the teachings of Jesus as the only begotten Son of God.  Because the questioning of the divinity of Christ is so damaging to the salvation of people, John has no patience with it.  These ideas come from the pit of hell, from the father of lies himself, the devil.  (See John 8:44)  

Jesus is the only way to God.  Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.  If you really know me, you will know my Father as well.  From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”  (John 14:6-7)  Jesus reveals himself to his disciples and says He will return to his Father.  Accepting him as the Son of God will manifest the Father and his likeness to them.  Jesus brings hope to their finite lives that they will be with him someday in his Father’s house.  John says that any other belief is a lie—not foundational to the body of Christ.  The writer of Hebrews reveals the divinity of Christ.  Long ago God spoke many times and in many ways to our ancestors through the prophets.  And now in these final days, he has spoken to us through his Son.  God promised everything to the Son as an inheritance, and through the Son he created the universe.  The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God, and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command.  When he had cleansed us from our sins, he sat down in the place of honor at the right hand of the majestic God in heaven.  (Hebrews 1:1-3)  As with John 1, we see God creating everything that is through Jesus, his Son.  Jesus comes to Earth to create new creatures through his sacrifice on the cross.  His death and resurrection produce eternal life for all who believe by faith in his works.  We know Jesus took the name “son of man.”  People were made a little lower that angels.  We are called collectively the son of man, no higher than the angelic host, possessing no supernatural abilities.  Destined to die after a few years, we are unrighteous with lives of trouble and violence.  Yet, Jesus called himself the son of man, born as man was born.  For in one place the Scriptures say, “What are mere mortals that you should think about them, or a son of man that you should care for him?  Yet for a little while you made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor.   You gave them authority over all things.”  Now when it says “all things,” it means nothing is left out.  But we have not yet seen all things put under their authority.  What we do see is Jesus, who for a little while was given a position “a little lower than the angels”; and because he suffered death for us, he is now “crowned with glory and honor.”  Yes, by God’s grace, Jesus tasted death for everyone.  God, for whom and through whom everything was made, chose to bring many children into glory.  And it was only right that he should make Jesus, through his suffering, a perfect leader, fit to bring them into their salvation.  (Hebrews 2:6-10, NLT)  Jesus became the leader of all the sons and daughters of men.  God planned to bring us to his side, just as the only begotten Son is by his side.  The angels are not in his intimate family.  Jesus came as the son of man, to raise all men and women to the position of sonship and daughter-ship.  As we are, Jesus became a little lower than angels, to suffer life as human’s suffer, so He might be tempted with finiteness.  He understands our fear in our place of finiteness, and provided a way we might be redeemed by his blood to a place of honor in God’s household, just as He is honored by the Father.  What we do see is Jesus, who for a little while was given a position “a little lower than the angels”; and because he suffered death for us, he is now “crowned with glory and honor.”  We also are crowned with the glory of Jesus, for we are now known as his brothers and sisters.  So now Jesus and the ones he makes holy have the same Father,  that is why Jesus is not ashamed to call them his brothers and sisters.  (Hebrews 2:11, NLT)  Jesus took the name of son of man so that through his exaltation to his rightful place in God’s household, we too, sons of men, could be so honored.  By faith, we are IN HIM and He is IN US.  

Peter talks at length about the people who claim to be prophets of God, but who are really the messengers of Satan.  When people set themselves away from the body of Christ, claiming to have a message that they only are privy to, beware, for you are dealing with false doctrine.  These people will set themselves up as having divine insight, special knowledge.  Through the years, some even have claimed to be the Christ.  Others lead people away with strained interpretation of the scripture or with so-called new revelations given to them by angels.  But in all these situations, the flesh, with the desire to be known as special, presides.  By claiming to be someone unique, even Christ, or by claiming a new and better interpretation of the scriptures, people manifest themselves as divine, above the the crowd.  All of this self-engrandisement denotes foolishness and danger to weak believers.  As Peter says, These people are springs without water and mists driven by a storm.  Blackest darkness is reserved for them.  For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of the flesh, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error.  (2 Peter 2:17-18)  Most of these wayward doctrines and ideas return people to slavery, following do’s and don’t’s, forgetting salvation is through grace and faith in Christ’s works, not their own.  Rather than relying on God’s goodness and his free gift through Christ, they once again become entangled with fleshly ways of trying to earn salvation.  Some fall into depravity, thinking good works will free them from their sins.  Unfortunately, sin is preeminent in the flesh, preventing people from solving the problems of evil.  The devil’s nature is sin.  His magnetic field of authority will attract the iron filings of sin in your life as long as you live in the flesh.  In your natural state, you will always do the will of his sinful magnetic force.  As a new creature in Christ, you are metaphorically made of a heavenly substance: holy, incorruptible, free from the field of Satan’s power.  This is what the new creature is, a different composite, made up of God in man by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Think of the Israelites.  Pharaoh cannot keep you in Egypt, for you have crossed the Red Sea.  You are bound for the Promised Land.  Do not let your memory go back to Egypt and the old lifestyle under bondage to Pharaoh.  Instead, recognize you are free; reckon the old life dead to you, regardless of the wandering of your mind.  You have crossed into a new life.  Pharaoh’s army has been destroyed.  Do not let any person, idea, or dogma bring you back into Egypt, where you worked day and night just to survive.  You are a NEW CREATURE.  As a son or daughter of man, you have been delivered to God’s side by THE SON OF MAN.  He paid the price for all sons and daughters of men to be forever in the household of God as joint-heirs with Christ.  He became a little lower than the angels so that He in his resurrection could lift the redeemed to the rightful place that God intended for them from the beginning of time.  This is the truth of the Gospel, whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.  Amen!  

1 John 2:12-17 Dear Children!

1 John 2:12-17  I am writing to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of his name.  I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning.  I am writing to you, young men because you have overcome the evil one.  I write to you dear children, because you know the Father.  I write to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning.  I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God lives in you, and you have overcome the evil one.  Do not love the world or anything in the world.  If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them.  For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world.  The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.  

All of us who believe in Jesus Christ as our Savior are children of God—new creatures made for his domain and not for this earth and its desires.  But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.  And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.  (Ephesians 2:4-7)  When Jesus said that we must be born again that is what He meant.  We cannot live this life as the old unregenerate man with his affections for the things of this world and be as God wants us to be.  We cannot live a self-interested, self-oriented life and please God.  We are made different when we press into God by faith in Jesus Christ and his works.  When we press in by faith, our temples, our souls within, us become inhabited by the Holy Spirit.  He directs our paths and communes with us in our minds.  We always have intimate access to God because the Holy Spirit abides within us.  The lines of communication are not by the airways but by the Spirit.  Our spirits can communicate with him day and night, with the lines between God and his new creatures always open and never overloaded or cut.  Because of his constant presence within us, our thinking evolves to a place diametrically different from the natural world’s ideas about living.  As children in the household of God, we know that we have been delivered from our sins and the world’s viewpoint of life.  We know the righteousness of God has come to us.  John says, I am writing to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of his name, and that you know the Father.  As children of God, we understand God’s great love has come to us in the form of Jesus.  He came to us in the flesh to do the works of God so that we might know the true Father and his love for us.  For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.  The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship.  And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”  The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.  (Romans 15:14-16)  When a person first reads such verses as a new Christian, his or her heart wells up with inexpressible joy with the thought of such a wondrous salvation.  We are no longer fearful of dying; instead, we have confidence that we reside in the household of God, a true home, a place where we will experience eternity.  Hallelujah, what a Savior!  

We greatly rejoice for we know Jesus has broken the bonds of slavery to the fear of our own demise.   Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.  (Hebrews 2:14-15)  Yes, we are no longer captive to the authority of the devil; we no longer live in the land of Pharaoh.  As we read in the word, if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.  (John 8:36).  John understood that after walking with God and hearing the Holy Spirit’s voice, the fathers in the body of Christ have a better understanding of God than the nascent Christians, the immature.  They know God is love and that God has been with them from the first day they surrendered to him.  They know the faithfulness of God and understand that his love is everlasting, through good times and times of trial and sorrow.  The fathers know him who is from the beginning.  They understand that God has created all things, and that they can trust him when they go through the shadow of death.  They rest in God’s goodness, not their own goodness; in his righteousness, not their own.  The young men, on the other hand, are the warriors on the battlefield to win converts for the Lord, to hold back the sinful forces and to progress into the devil’s territory, taking back the land that the evil one has contaminated.  I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God lives in you, and you have overcome the evil one.  Young men are strong physically and mentally.  They must be alert, actively involved with overcoming the evil one in their own lives and in the world’s environment.  Young men start new ministries and programs.  They are willing to shout from the housetops that God is the Lord of all and He alone should be served.  As soldiers on the field, young men care for others, helping the wounded make it back to home base.  The limping, the hurting, the scarred should feel the strong arms of those who have overcome the evil way.  The church needs those who know the Father from the beginning, who know the God of faithfulness.  However, the church also needs the strong warriors, who are not afraid of the battlefield’s violence, who willingly leave their safe trenches, going over the top, facing the onslaught of the enemy without fear or retreat.  Fathers and sons have work to do in the family of God.

All Christians whether old or young, mature or immature, should beware of the contamination of the world.  If we place our tent pegs deep into the world and its ways, we will be unproductive, perhaps even lazy, lacking zeal for the Lord.  No Christian should ever lack a will to live as a fervent Christian, outwardly and faithfully.  If we lack a strong desire to serve the Lord in this sinful world, the love of the world is too much in us.  Do not love the world or anything in the world.  Loving to eat, drink, and be merry will destroy your vision about heaven and about the good things of the Lord.  If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them.  What love does the Father have in him?  The love for humanity, to redeem his precious creation made in his image.  If we become tied down to the things of the world, the Father’s unfailing love for the unredeemed, the lost, will not be in us.  The writer of Hebrews reminds us that Abraham went where God led him, not knowing where he was going without a permanent dwelling, for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.  (Hebrews 11:10 NKJV)  Without a committed love relationship with God, we will seek our self-interests before God’s will, before what He considers most important.  The will of the Father, his redemption plan, will be lost in our self-oriented lives.  In this temporary life, our tents should easily be moved to wherever God leads us.  Our lives should be dependent upon God’s will and direction for us and not ours.  Sometimes, we want to stay at a particular oasis.  The water is cool and the shade of the trees is to our liking, but we must be careful with such thinking, for we are settling into a worldly existence.  For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world.  As children of God, members of his body at any stage of our spiritual growth, we should always be cognizant of God’s ways, his will, his plan for us.  We should keep in mind what the Lord said to Jeremiah, For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.  (Jeremiah 29:11)   A worldly person seeks fleshly pursuits, but the spirit-led son or daughter of God seeks his ways.  The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.   We must stay in God’s lane.  His lane will lead to great eternal results, the fulfillment of all that God has promised.  His lane leads to, Well done, good and faithful servant!  You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things.  Come and share your master’s happiness!  (Matthew 25:21)  

1 John 2:7-11 Let Your Light Shine!

1 John 2:7-11  Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning.  This old command is the message you have heard.  Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and in you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.  Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness.  Anyone who loves their brother and sister lives in the light, and there is nothing in them to make them stumble.  But anyone who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness.  They do not know where they are going, because the darkness has blinded them.  

From the beginning of time, from the time of Adam and Eve, we have heard the story of love.  John is the apostle of love, reminding us of this commandment of love in the chronicles of the Old Testament and in the story of Jesus and his redemptive power in the New Testament.  God was pleased with the man and woman He made.  When He finished creating all that is and especially man in his image, He was very pleased: God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.  (Genesis 1:31)  God loved what He created.  He gave man a preeminent position in his creation: ruler over all He had made.  Right from the beginning, we see the love of God expressed towards his special creation made in his image.  Of course, the story quickly changes as we discover the waywardness of God’s newly created beings.  They fail to rule in harmony with God’s will.  Adam and Eve fail by disobeying God’s one and only commandment: you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  (Genesis 2:17)  They learn with that act that they do not have to be subservient to the Creator but could make their own decisions, good or bad.  This disobedience creeps into everything that people do.  Mankind’s self-willed decisions even break the bonds of love between God and his much-loved creation.  Rather than loving God with all their hearts, minds, souls and strength, men and women move towards loving themselves first.  Rather than being caretakers of the pristine environment; people exploited the environment for their own temporary good and personal gain.  Humans became destroyers of other humans as wars and destruction became the game of life, not God’s attributes of mercy and grace.  Restrictions and barriers became part of existence, separating people from one another and requiring laws to determine what is good and bad.  Rather than loving others as they want to be loved, men and women became suspicious of everyone, especially anyone who is different from themselves.  With all these changes, people began to live in shells of their own making.  Because of this lack of love for God and for others, mankind’s history reveals the exploitation of all that is around him, including other men, tribes, and nations.  We have a history tainted with blood and destruction; hundreds of millions have been put to death by other men, and the natural environment is stressed to support the will of mankind’s self-interest.  Created in God’s image, people naturally know that killing and destruction are not the intention of God for his people.  As with Adam and Eve, made to exist in harmony with each other, all that was made was to exist in everlasting love.  Nothing was made to experience violence and mayhem; all was made to reflect God’s enduring love for the life that He imprinted in everything on Earth.  We must agree with John: Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness.

Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and in you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.  As John writes this, he now turns his focus to the Christ and the new creation.  Jesus came into the world to deliver mankind from the disease of sin and death as He brings in God’s new covenant of grace.  A spirit of violence and destruction has led man into a caldron of eternal damnation.  After the contamination of sin, people cannot look to an eternity without judgment.  Mankind was under the wrath of God, for the cancer of sin was a threat to the existence of everlasting goodness and harmony in the universe.  Consequently, an eternal extraction of sin was necessary, and this came in the form of God sending his own son in human form: Jesus Christ.  Jesus possessed all the likeness of God.  Jesus said, If you really know me, you will know my Father as well.  From now on, you do know him and have seen him.  (John 14:7)  He obeyed God in everything.  He became a living propitiation for our waywardness from God, correcting the vileness of sin in mankind by becoming a perfect sacrifice for the sinful nature of men and women.  If we die with him at the cross by faith, we will live eternally with him by that same faith.  As Christ was raised from this earth, caught up in the clouds to be with God, we too will be caught up to meet God.  This is THE TRUTH, embedded in the teachings and works of Jesus Christ.  John says the darkness is passing.  Before Jesus, no permanent solution was found for man’s condition of sin.  But Jesus brought light into the world: everlasting light, God himself.  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning.  Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.  In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.  …The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.  He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.  He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.  Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.  (John 1:1-6; 9-13)  Now Jesus is the light of God, the image of love, personifying everything that God is, as the perfect representation of God.  If you know Jesus, you know God.  If you hear the voice of the Holy Spirit inside of you, you hear the voice of God.  The new creature, birthed by faith in Jesus Christ and his works, has the relationship with God that God intended for Adam and Eve.  In his life, Jesus demonstrated so much love and goodness that He willingly obeyed his Father, going to the cross for a sinful creation.  In his teachings, He even announced that humans should love everyone as God loves everyone, sending the benefits of the sun and rain on the good and the evil.  Even after Noah’s generation was destroyed because of their violent and unloving nature and actions, God repented of this destruction.  He decided to allow mankind to exist even though their intentions were evil, not merciful or harmonious with God’s creation.  We see this same enduring love in his design not to eliminate Cain’s biological existence.  Out of his love for Cain, He allowed the murderous Cain to continue with life and with propagating, even though he killed a human made in God’s image.  Cain was doing the exact opposite of God’s nature.  God continued to send his sun and rain on Cain and his progeny. The command of loving God and your neighbor has always been God’s desire for mankind.  John presents Jesus as the fulfillment of God’s desire for man.  Love with the concomitant eternal life is the message of Jesus Christ.  To fulfill all of the commandments, to be like God, to be one with him, we must follow Jesus’ command: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  And secondly, Love your neighbor as yourself.  (Matthew 22:37&39)  

When we fail to love; we are walking in darkness.  If we claim to know Jesus, claim to be his followers, and then walk in hatred, bitterness, and anger towards others, God is not in us.  These attitudes have nothing to do with God.  With a true metamorphous from the old man and his nature to the new man born IN CHRIST comes an abundance of love.  We cannot say we know God and his nature if we fail to love others, even our enemies.  But anyone who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness.  They do not know where they are going, because the darkness has blinded them.  We have no right to judge our brothers and sisters, but we might look askance when they speak evil of others, even with malice towards destroying their enemy.  When we move into that domain of evil, there is no ending to what we might do to others who do not look like us or believe as we do.  What a dangerous position to be in, for we are saying we can hurt or destroy others that God made in his image.  We are then shaking our fists in God’s face, telling him we do not need to love those we consider unlovely.  The Old Testament law was a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ.  God dealt with people on the playing field we designed.  Since we were violent, God used violence to control people.  But violence only leads to violence, as we can see in the accounts presently before us.  Men will go to war because of something that happened maybe 400 years ago, seeking revenge for something that happened to their ancestors.  This is the playing field that flesh believes is satisfying and corrective.  But Jesus came into our lives, talking about forgiveness, mercy and grace.  We may accept these attributes for the ones who reciprocate the same things to us, but for those who have an evil intent towards us, our flesh tends to desire destruction or punishment for them.  Jesus personified God’s love.  He went to the cross willingly without complaint to rescue men and women from their violent nature.  If we walk in darkness, we have lost our direction toward goodness.  Neither do we understand that the light of God has come into our existence in the form of Jesus Christ.  Darkness has blinded the people of God in so many ways.  Every day, we need to turn to the true light of the world, Jesus.  Let us be lights, not dispensers of darkness.  We must point to God, not deliver even more confusion to a dark and sinful world.