Tag: #JohnApostle

1 John Challenge

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This week in reading 1John, and walking through the week with family and friends, I learned something valuable. I love the way God allows us to read something, or brings it to our attention, just at that moment where He is going to give us a real life example. I believe that I learned more from reading 1John this time than any other time. For me, it became one big thought. And, what is that thought? IF YOU HAVE SEEN JESUS, there is an excitement in your relationship with Him. (1John 1:1-3) When that excitement is there, He wants you to hold on to that joy (1John 1:4-5). He then tells us what we gain from this relationship with Him… we can walk in the light and the truth and have a cleansing from our sins (1John 1:5-9). And, yes, we continue to mess up. Who doesn’t ever, ever sin? (No one according to 1John 1:8, except, of course, Jesus Christ.) But, He forgives us when we confess those sins. He does not see us as the failure, He sees us as someone who has done something wrong and we have the chance to make it right!

In 1John 2, John reminds us that it is only Jesus Christ who has given us this ability to be continually in right relationship with God. Jesus is the one who took the penalty for our sins… and not only ours who accept it, but even those who do not. In other words, God does not love someone who does not believe in Him any less. However, they have chosen to not have relationship… which is what the rest of John’s first letter seems to be about… relationship (fellowship).

In 1John 2, we are told how to have fellowship. If we truly know Jesus and understand what He did for us, we will want to follow His ways. Why? because they bring us a peace. He perfects us or completes us. When we are made whole, there is a peace in our lives. If we do not understand the love of God, how can we possibly love others? And, when we do not show love to others, there is such contention. John continues in 1John 2 to show us that we should love the Father and His ways and not the world’s ways. This world WILL pass away. We will come to an end! The talk this week in our home brought to light the concern with the way the world is going right now. John even addresses that! There will be people who are against Christ and against Christians. However, no matter what others might say about you or to you, “This is the promise that He hath promised us, even eternal life.” (1John 1:25) This is our hope and so we should abide in Christ.

John then seems to stop and reflect on that great love of Christ all over again in 1John 3. “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.” (verse 1) That love that we accept from God makes us different! The world cannot understand (1John 3:1). I see this truth in those who are not Christians, those who seem to just not understand me. That is okay. There is a peace. “We are the sons of God” (1John 3:2) Because we are the sons of God, we purify ourselves as Christ is pure. Why would we do that? Because we love Him! When we are trying to please our spouse, we do those things that we believe will please that spouse. Why would it be any different with Christ? He was manifested (shown to us) to take away our sins… (v. 5) Because He did this, we should love one another because we should see the great love He has shown us as an example. “Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you.” (1John 3:13) A follower of Christ may look different, and those around them may see them as “holier than thou” or “just ignorant and stupid.” The Apostle John anticipated that too. He said in 1John 3:19 “And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him”. Also, in 1John 3:24, he said, “And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in Him, and He in him. And hereby we know that He abideth in us, by the Spirit which He hath given us.” What a peace we gain from stepping back and remembering that we are children of God… and that He loves us enough to fellowship with us… to have a relationship with us.

Then in 1John 4, we are warned that not everyone will understand, and that not everyone even wants to. However, we are assured that we overcome what the world throws at us (1John 4:4). When in our hearts we only and always want to speak about God and His ways and His doings, the world does not understand: “We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.” (v. 6) And how does this truth work itself out in our lives? We love one another because love is of God. God proved that love to us by sending His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him. (1John 4:9) If we are living through Him, then we abide in Him, and we do those things He wants us to do and we love others: “Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.” (1John 4:11) And, “We love Him, BECAUSE HE first loved us.” (1John 4:19)

John then ends his letter with a great excitement… “For whatsoever is born of God overcomes the world.” (1John 5:4) And how do we overcome? “This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith.” But, this is not a blind faith as some will say. “He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself” (v. 10) “And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may KNOW Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life” (v. 20), which He hath given to us in His Son (v. 11). John tells us that He wrote these things so that we may know that we have eternal life and that we might believe on the name of the Son of God.” (1John 5:5)

Why would John be so bold as to tell us this? Who is He to tell us anything? That brings me back to where I first started… BECAUSE John HEARD, SAW, LOOKED upon, and HANDLED with His hands the Lord Jesus Christ. (1John 1:1) And not only that, John bore witness to what he saw and he so wanted us to all know too. Why does John want us to know? He wants us to experience eternal life because He understood the joy of the relationship with Jesus Christ and His Heavenly Father. Thus, John wrote these things unto us “that our joy may be full.” (1John 1:4) This is always my hope too… that others would come to know the Love that God has bestowed on us through Jesus Christ and that this love is worth more than life itself. I want to share what God has given to me because I have that joy of which John spoke. Would you consider, if you have not already, seeking that joy as well? It begins with a relationship with Jesus Christ!

John… The Book, the Man, the Message

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“But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.”  (John 20:31)

John was a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Of course, he didn’t know Jesus as all of that when he met him.  John, like so many others, was just a regular man doing regular work.  He was a fisherman.  However, he, like so many other Jews in his time, was looking for the Messiah.  It was predicted in Daniel, hundreds of years before, that the Messiah was to come about this time.  They were looking for this promised Messiah.  In fact, in John 1, it states that Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, went and found his own brother (Simon) and told him that they had found the Messiah, or Christ, as the word Messiah means.  So, they were looking for the Messiah. 

Unfortunately, the type of Messiah for which they were looking was not who Jesus was.  Instead, Jesus gave a different message.  We see in the four gospels and the book of Acts that the Jews were not set free from the Roman rule, as they had hoped for.  Instead, Jesus preached another message.  But, in all of this, what did John, the man, learn.

John was chosen by Jesus as one of the twelve disciples.  Why him?  Why the twelve and not others?  We are not really ever given insight into that except that these men were of little reputation and they were unlearned (had not been to “official” school).  Regardless, John came to a point in his life when he called himself “the one whom Jesus loved”.  John felt a personal connection with Jesus.

In the beginning of the book of John, and also in the letter of 1 John, we see that John is extremely excited to share about Jesus.  He says in John 1:14 “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”  He pauses and puts that in parenthesis … as if he is thinking and remembering… and we beheld his glory (long pause….. )… the glory as of the only begotten of the Father.  I hear John’s heart, especially after reading 1 John 1:1-4 where John says, “That which was from the beginning (like the very beginning…), which we have heard (amazing teachings… amazing love), which we have seen with our eyes (we took it in… Jesus was there right before us… ), which we have looked upon (fully in our view… so much so that we have firsthand knowledge of it….), and our hands have handled (we touched him!!  Really touched him!!), of the Word of life.”  (In John 1:1,14, John had already shared that Jesus was that Word of life made flesh.)  John goes on in 1 John 1:1-4, “(For the life was manifested (it was made apparent to us… shown to us… physically… shown to us), and we have seen it (you can hear John get more excited as he writes), and bear witness (we are not afraid to tell what we saw… it was real), and shew unto you (John wants us to see too… he wants us to know too…) that eternal life (Jesus gives that eternal life and John has this in the forefront of his words), which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us; (John acknowledges that Jesus came from God… to us… to show himself, to manifest himself)) That which we have seen and heard (John is reiterating this again) declare we unto you (he is telling us… he wants us to know), that ye also may have fellowship with us (that we can walk together in this awesome assembly of others who follow Jesus): and truly our fellowship is with the Father, AND with his Son Jesus Christ.  (It isn’t about the man Jesus Christ… it is about God the Father and the Messiah Jesus… the Son of God.)  And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.  John is so excited about sharing Jesus because He loves Jesus… He truly is excited about telling what he personally has experienced.

Have you ever had a life-changing event and you wanted to tell everyone you knew about it.  This is how I see John the Apostle.  He had sat under Jesus’ teachings for three years.  He heard all that Jesus taught and saw all that Jesus did.  He watched Jesus die on the cross.  He heard in the upper room how Jesus warned them and prayed for them and agonized over them.  He saw Jesus’ tenderness in committing his own mother to the care of John.  John saw Jesus raised from the dead.  He touched Jesus’ hands.  He beheld his presence.  He heard his voice.  He saw him ascend into heaven, where he was told that Jesus sits at the right hand of God the Father and will one day return to take us with him. 

Tradition has it that John was boiled in oil and would not die.  He was exiled to the island of Patmos where, once again, he encountered Jesus Christ and God speaking directly to him (which he recorded in the book of Revelation).  John grew more and more in love with the person of Jesus Christ.  And, even though other gospels had been written, he writes about Jesus and tells of his divine nature and, in the end, this is the reason John tells us that he is writing:

“But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.”  (John 20:31)