Yesterday we learned that we should love in deed and truth and not just word or talk. How do we know that we are loving in truth? Christ’s standard of love is extremely high and when we look at the needs around us it can seem overwhelming and we can feel completely inadequate. In those instances, our hearts may condemn us. But we can have confidence before God that He knows our true motives. God is sovereign and will deal with those things our hearts may miss. We see examples of this in action in the story of Mary and Martha where Jesus defended Mary for her heart of love. We also see it in Jesus’ restoration of Peter after his denial three times. When we are able to silence our hearts by resting on God’s sovereignty, then we have confidence before God and can ask Him for things boldly, knowing that we are choosing to live lives subject to His will and doing what pleases Him. Because we are living according to His will, we will be asking things according to His will (1 John 5:14-15) and can know that we will receive what we ask for.
A confident and effective prayer life is based on obedience to God’s commandments which are summed up in a single command of faith and love. Faith in Jesus’ name and love for one another.

How effective is your prayer life? If you feel like your prayers are not being answered then this passage gives you a few areas to examine. Is your love for others lived out in action and truth? Do you have any unresolved conflict with another believer you need to deal with today?

The second half of verse 10 leads into this section where John continues the idea that no sin is of God and applies that to the Christian who does not love his brother. Love is the expression of our new birth. Love is righteousness in action. Jesus’ command to believers right before He went to the cross was that we love one another. Love is certainly not what Cain did to Abel. Cain murdered Abel because of the guilt he felt for his own unrighteousness against his brother’s righteous act. Many times our own hatred towards others is prompted by our personal guilt when we compare our lives against another’s. John reminds us not to be surprised that the world exhibits such hatred towards us, it is hatred amongst believers that is so abnormal. When John says we know “we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers,” he is not speaking about salvation but the experience of eternal life. If we hate our brother in Christ then we are a spiritual murder as Jesus explained in Matthew 5:21-22. If we hate our brothers and sisters in Christ then we do not have eternal life abiding in us—not we don’t possess eternal life but we cannot expect to abide in Christ while hating our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Love is not hatred for our fellow believer, instead, love is laying down one’s life as Christ laid His life down for us. The ultimate expression of love is to sacrifice your life for another. While we may not have the opportunity to sacrifice our life for another, we have many opportunities to lay our lives aside for the benefit of others. When it comes to our material goods we have many such opportunities. If we see a brother or sister in need and yet close our heart and do not help, how can God’s love be abiding in us? Love is not what we say (word or talk) but is what we do (deed and truth). Our love is expressed in our actions.

What can you do today to move your love from talk to action?

1 John 2:28 appears to be the theme verse of this letter. If we abide in Christ, then we will be able to boldly stand before Him with confidence when He returns rather than feeling the need to shrink away in shame. As believers, we are all saved and have eternal life. But we will all stand before Jesus and give an account of how we have lived for Him. If we abide in Him, then we will be able to stand confidently before Him. If, however, we do not abide in Him, then John tells us we face the real possibility when Jesus returns of wanting to shrink away in shame. In no way does this passage suggest the possibility that we can ever lose our salvation! John wrote this letter to help us know how to have this confidence.

Christ is righteous—completely righteous (“God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” 1 John 1:5). Because of this, anyone we see who exhibits the true righteousness of Christ must be born again. The opposite is not necessarily true. This is not a test to determine if someone is born again nor is it a test for our own assurance of salvation. We have already seen in this letter that Christians can walk in darkness and do sin (1 John 1:6,8;2:1). But when we see someone living as Christ lived, we can know that they are born again. See, behold, marvel at the greatness of God’s love toward us that we are called children of God. That is what we are. We are God’s children because we have been born again into His family. This is a spiritual reality that is not seen by the world but we can see it in fellow believers who exhibit Christ’s righteousness. When Jesus comes again, then we will all be transformed to be like He is. Our hope in Jesus, our belief in Him, is what brings about our new birth and in that we are made pure as He is pure. At the core of every believer is a complete purity that comes from the Saviour and that purity will be fully realised when He returns.

Some bible translations refer to the “practice” or “habbit” of sinning in this last section (1 John 3:4-10) but the original language doesn’t talk about habitual or ongoing sin, it speaks only of sin. “Everyone who sins breaks the law…” is likely a more accurate translation. This passage initially appears to say that whoever sins cannot be saved. But the passage is connected to John’s previous idea that when someone exhibits the righteousness of Christ, then their born again nature is clearly seen. God is completely sinless and so no wickedness or unrighteousness can come from Him. If we are born again, then our born-again nature comes from God and that cannot produce sin. Sin only comes from ignorance and blindness of God and can never be a result of abiding in Christ. For a believer, sin should be abnormal and unnatural. But we do still struggle with sin in this life which is why 1 John 1:8, 10 remains true and 1 John 1:9 is so important. Paul said a similar thing when he spoke of his struggle with sin. He said that when he did what he did not want to do, it wasn’t him (his identity was as a child of God) but it was the sin living in him (which would only be completely removed when Christ returned) (Rom 7:20). Some people, perhaps also the false teachers’ John warned about, seem to think they are free to sin and still claim to be righteous. But don’t be deceived. Sin only comes from the devil and must never be seen to be part of our regenerate nature in Christ.

Does your sin shock you? Does it feel unnatural to you? It should. If you find any level of sin comfortable and acceptable then heed John’s reminder that no sin originate’s from God, but only from the devil and do whatever it takes to cut that out of your life. Follow the cycle of abiding, walking in the light, letting the light reveal sin, confessing that sin, and then continue your walk in fellowship with God as you grow closer every day.

John has just pointed out that the world is passing away along with its desires. Now he says that we are living in the last hour, the final period of time before Satan is overthrown. One of the climactic events of the end times is the rise of the Antichrist. John is now warning about those who come as a precursor with the characteristics of the Antichrist. These antichrists come to deceive believers and rob them of fellowship with God. John says that these antichrists had come from “us” but were not of “us.” John is referring to the apostles and probably the apostolic centre of Christianity, the church in Jerusalem. He is not saying that these false teachers arose out of the readers’ church because then “they went out from us” would mean they were no longer a problem. They were a problem because they might appear to have the authority of the apostles.
John reminds his readers that they have the anointing of the Holy Spirit and knowledge of the truth. They are spiritually mature and do not need teaching. It is possible that this letter was sent to the elders of the church but also that the entire church was spiritually mature. John isn’t writing to inform but to warn. They already know the truth. John isn’t writing to help them see if they are saved. That is the deception the false teachers are probably bringing, that salvation is not through Jesus Christ or not through Jesus Christ alone. They may have even come claiming some authority from the Father. But to deny the Son is to deny the Father and to confess and proclaim Jesus as the Christ is to confess the Father too (John 10:30; 14:9, 6). John reminds them of the promise made by Jesus—eternal life. Whatever teaching the false teachers brought, it denied the sufficiency of Christ and His promise of eternal life.

Even today there are many in the church who sow seeds of doubt about our salvation. They would have us look at our lifestyles and actions and use all manner of outward indicators to check whether we are saved or not. But John makes it clear that our salvation is based on our belief in the promise of eternal life from Jesus Christ alone. Any doubts we might have will be overcome by returning to the truth, that which we heard from the beginning, the gospel. Our salvation rests in a promise from the one who never lies and never changes (John 5:24; 10:28).

Proverbs is a collection of wise sayings that are easily applied to everyday situations. Consider carefully which of the sayings you’ve read today are particularly applicable to you today and in the coming week. What do you need to change or do more of to make use of God’s wisdom in your life?

The Psalms are great for helping us relate to God and worship Him. It’s wonderful to spend time in the word and grow in your knowledge of God at a head level. Use today to do your quiet time a little differently and try to grow in your knowledge of God at a heart level. We must always strive to move from knowing of God to knowing God.

In his opening, John stated his general purpose for writing this letter, that we might have fellowship with God and in that his joy would be complete. Now he begins to focus in on the specific concerns that prompted the writing of this letter.

John begins by affirming that he is not writing to unbelievers in order to lead them to salvation, nor is he writing to believers with a wavering faith. He addresses them as children (infants), fathers, and young men. Some have seen this list to cover different levels of spiritual maturity but the order he lists the age-groups doesn’t seem to support that. It is likely that he is referring to all his readers as being characterised by all three age groups. They are little children because they have received forgiveness for their sins and now are children of God. They are fathers in the sense that they have an experience with the eternal one. This suggests that despite the warnings earlier in the chapter, John believes his readers have truly experienced fellowship with God (“him” could refer to either the Father or the Son, John didn’t consider the distinction important). His readers are young men in the sense that they were strong and able to resist Satan’s assaults. John repeats the three age-groups with subtle differences. The second time he uses the word children, he uses a different word, instead of infants he considers them children who are matured to a relationship with the Father. When calling them young men he points out their abiding in the word of God which gives them the strength to overcome the evil one. John’s repetition suggests that his readers solidly grounded in their faith.
If John was happy with his readers’ faith and even considered them mature, then his warnings remind us that even as mature believers we need to be reminded of the dangers that will always exist no matter how far we have grown in our Christian walk.

The world will always compete for our love. We cannot love the world or the things in the world and the Father at the same time. If we love the world, then the love of the Father is not in us. James 4:4 says something similar, “friendship with the world is enmity with God.” Why can’t we love both? Because the things of the world don’t come from the Father but from the world. The “world” describes the system of values and goals that are contrary to God’s way of doing things. This system is based on the lust of the flesh and the covetousness of the eyes and a prideful, boastful, and greedy way of life. As Christians, we should not live with those worldly appetites or perspectives. The world system is temporary and will pass away but to live for God has eternal value.

Only one life, ’twill soon be past; only what’s done for Christ will last

C.T. Studd

Whether you are a new believer or have walked with God as long as you can remember, we all need these warnings. Do you find yourself being lured by the world system and its desires? What do you need to change today to make sure your love is focussed on abiding with God forever?

Yesterday we saw John focus on obedience as the test of our intimacy and knowledge of God. That naturally leads to the question of what must we obey? John is not writing some new command which is readers had never heard but the original one which they heard from the beginning (when they first heard the gospel; cf. 2 John 5). Jesus taught that we are to love others as He loved us (John 13:34). Jesus called this a new commandment and John points out that it is still new in the sense that it has not lost its freshness. That kind of love was first seen in Jesus and should continue to be seen in the life of every believer. The love of Christ ushered in a new age at His incarnation, his birth, and brought with it a light that is eroding the darkness of the world and its hatred. This light will never extinguish and we have the opportunity of carrying forth this light. How do we carry the light? By loving our brothers and sisters in Christ. John’s warning is specifically to believers because only a believer has spiritual brothers and sisters. A Christian who can hate a fellow Christian is not walking in the light of Christ’s love but is still caught up in the darkness of this world and cannot claim to have an intimate knowledge of Christ. If we really know Christ, then we will love our brothers and sisters.

If you measure your love for Christ by your love for your fellow believer does that change how you might have previously evaluated things? Our love for Christ should naturally outflow into love for others. The solution is not to try harder with others but to expose yourself more to the light of God’s word and be changed (1 John 1:8-10).

John’s intention in writing was to encourage us to walk in the light as God is in the light and not to sin. But if we do sin, and we will sin, then we have Jesus Christ who intercedes on our behalf as our advocate before the Father. What a wonderful truth, that when we sin and then confess our sins, Jesus stands in that gap and argues our case, not on our merits but on His righteousness as the propitiation for our sins (Jesus satisfied God’s wrath through His death on the cross by making a perfect and complete payment for our sins). Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross is sufficient to pay not only for our sins but the sins of the whole world. Christ died for all so that whoever believes in Him will not die but have eternal life (John 3:16). If Christ’s death is sufficient to pay for the sins of the whole world, then we can be confident that He is more than able to advocate on our behalf.

How can we know that we are in fellowship with God? (“come to know him?”) When we keep his commandments and sin less (rather than are sinless) then we know we are in fellowship with Him. If someone says that he is in fellowship with God (says, “I know him”) but does not keep His commandments, he is a liar and the truth is not in him—that person is out of touch with spiritual reality. Jesus said this quite plainly, “If you love me, you will keep my commands” (John 14:15, cf. John 15:14). When we keep God’s word and obey what it says, then God’s love is perfected. When we obey God then we have a deeper experience of His love through greater intimacy. If we say we abide in (have fellowship with) Christ, then we should live in obedience to the Father as He did. This passage has strong parallels with the Parable of the Vine and Branches from John’s gospel (John 15:1-8).

A deep and intimate relationship with Jesus and the Father is founded on obedience. We cannot continue to sin and hope for intimate fellowship with God. But when we do sin, all is not lost, Jesus not only paid for our sins at the cross, He also intercedes on our behalf before the Father as our advocate.
Regular repentance restores relationship.
How does knowing that Christ stands as your advocate before the Father encourage you today?

John continues with a truth that he along with the apostles had heard from Jesus, “that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.” God is perfectly holy and exists with absolutely no moral impurity at all. If we claim to live in fellowship with God and yet walk in darkness, that is to disobey Him and continue with some known sin, then we are living a lie and not living in truth. But if we walk in the light, where He is, then we have fellowship with one another (us and God). To live in the light is to live lives illuminated by truths revealed in His word. To live like that makes clear to us who God is and the reality of who we are, including our ongoing sin. It is the blood of Jesus that cleanses us from all sin and allowed for that fellowship in the first place and continues to maintain that fellowship. If we claim to have no sin then we are living in deception and the truth is not in us. Our fellowship with God is not because of our sinlessness but because of the continual cleansing work of Jesus Christ. If we are walking in the light, then that light will reveal our sins to us. When that happens and we confess our sins, when we acknowledge that sin to God, then He is faithful and just and forgives us from that sin. But what about the sin that we are not aware of? As we confess what we are aware of, God in His faithfulness cleanses us from all our unrighteousness. If the word reveals sin to us and we deny that and claim not to have sinned, then we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.
It’s important to note that throughout this passage, John uses the pronouns “we” and “us.” This makes it clear that John is writing to believers and is not discussing confession for salvation but ongoing confession to reestablish fellowship. When we believe, we are saved once and for all and become part of God’s family. That positional truth will never change. But just as in any family, we can cause grief to our Father when we sin against Him (Psalm 51:4). We need to acknowledge that sin and come to Him for forgiveness in order to restore intimacy with Him.

The only way to have fellowship with God is to walk in the light with Him. Any sin you are aware of and continue to hold on to, whether it is something you pretend never happened or something you continue to do, no matter how hidden you think it is, keeps you in the darkness and away from fellowship with God. What is it that you need to confess today so you can return to walking in the light?