Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?" --1 John 5:5 I love the book of 1 John because it is the cliff notes version of the Gospel of John. Both are written by John and his purpose in writing both books is that we may believe in the Son of God and have life (1 John 5:13, John 20:31). As far as I can remember I was someone who was a bit of a rebel, free spirited and did not like structure. I was someone who did not like authority and was a bit of a hard head and thought that I knew all the answers. It was this book and passage from 1 John 5:1-5 that God revealed this natural inclination that I had early on in my walk with the Lord and what it means to love God and what His commandments are for. The first thing that we see in this passage is the source of our belief in Jesus. We see that everyone who believes that Jesus is the Son of God has been born of God. Why do we need to believe in Jesus? In the beginning God has always been and God created all things and created man and woman and God intended for Himself and mankind to dwell in perfect relationship together. God has revealed Himself as holy through the Scriptures (Lev. 11:44) and we see in Genesis 3 that we as mankind has rebelled against God and in doing so, we are separated from God. The punishment of being separated from God is death yet God sent Jesus to pay our punishment for us and how we restore the relationship that God originally intended and to have Jesus' payment counted towards us is to believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that He rose from the dead (Romans 10:9-10). If we have believed in Jesus for the restoration of our relationship with God and the forgiveness of our sins, we see that :
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him.
By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments.
For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.
For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. What John is doing here is giving us a way to check our heart with the Lord. If we see that we have a hard time loving people, we see in 1 John 5:1 that loving the Lord and His people are interrelated. If we are sinning and having a hard time keeping His commandments we see that loving the Lord and keeping His commandments are interrelated (1 John 5:2). If we see His commandments as burdensome and not light (1 John 5:3, Matt 11:19-20) we know that we do not see that the Lord as good (Ps.34:8). If we do not love God, the people of God and or follow His commandments we can see that we are not children of God and do not know the Lord (1 John 3:10). If we are Christians and know God, the issue is loving God. We know that Jesus paid for our sins once (1 Pet. 3:18), once we believed in Jesus' life, death and resurrection we are His (Gal. 3:26), and He has covered the offenses through faith in Jesus (1 John 2:1-2, Phil.1:6). If we have faith in Jesus the issue is our vibrancy of relationship with Jesus (John 15:4). We can see this illustrated like a marriage relationship (Eph. 5). In marriage, man and wife establish a covenant relationship with each other, married people fight, then there is disunity, married couple talk, repent, and they are close in relationship again. There is no question that during this time they are still married. If you do not know the Lord, today this Sunday could be the day that you trust in the Lord for the forgiveness of your sins and began to experience the relationship that your were originally intended to have, which is with the Lord. I learned that there is freedom in surrender to the Lord, learning to submit myself to Godly leadership (1 Tim. 3) and that there is fullness of life as I live in accordance to how God created the universe to work. "You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forever more." -Psalm 16:11 --by Steven Nguyen
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Recently a friend of mine was robbed at knife-point while entering her apartment. He took her belongings including her car, but left her untouched by the grace of God. She ran next door to a neighbor and immediately called the police and they responded promptly because there was a police officer in the area. The police pulled him over and caught him with evidence and car, but the criminal denied the offenses. He was taken into custody and just recently, when in court, he continued to deny the charges against him. He was charged with the offenses he was accused of due to overwhelming evidence. The evidence was clear that he was guilty. The Bible also says we are clearly guilty (Romans 3:23). The criminal like the two criminals in the Luke 23 had choices to make. The first criminal, even while in a painful state, denied and even mocked Jesus. The second criminal humbled himself, saw his painful state, admitted his guilt, and asked Jesus to remember him. So my friend also shared that the criminal could have opted for a plea deal like most of us are even offered for normal traffic tickets, which entails a lesser sentence. In his case, he was sentenced to the maximum sentence of 10 years instead of lesser jail time or even things like early release or parole. The first criminal in Jesus story is getting the maximum sentence of eternal separation from God and missing out on the grace of God. The second criminal, even in his last moment of death received the grace of God and is now getting the ultimate plea deal, paradise with our savior Jesus Christ. In some ways we as Christians are like the first criminal, although we are sure of our salvation. We are in a spiritually painful state. We miss out on the grace of God when we are stubborn and don’t admit our need for Him in our lives. We are spiritually mocking God and missing out on God’s mercy which is the plea deal He offers to us daily to grow and be more Christ like. Luke 23:35-43 The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.” The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar and said, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.” There was a written notice above him, which read: this is the king of the Jews. One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. “Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” Questions
--by Larry Hernandez
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