1 John 4:11-14 says,... and a video


Here is some material that I have went through and have been going through and it seems fitting to the passage covered today in our devotions.  --Adam--

Today's verses are 1 John 4:11-14, which read,

v.11 - Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

Pretty straight forward statement here.  We are to follow the pattern of God's love.  God's love was sacrificial by giving of Himself through His Son Jesus Christ.  Our love to others needs to follow suit and be sacrificially from ourselves.  The word "ought" means "to owe to another."  

v.12 - No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.

John starts with a fact here that God is not visible, but if we are a genuine Christian that is shown by the fruit of that calling, then they will see God's love through us because He abides in us.  Maybe this is where that phrase came from, "You maybe the only Bible or the only Jesus that they see."  It is a great witness of God when we love one another.

v.13 - By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us His Spirit.  

John, the teacher, is going back to review again.  The genuine Christian has been given the Holy Spirit by God and the Holy Spirit assures us and guides us to continue to live a life that is pleasing and glorifying of God. 

v.14 - We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.

John, the disciple of Jesus, is going back to review again.  John wants his readers to remember that who is speaking and writing these words of Scripture was an eye witness to Jesus.  John was not only an eye witness, because there were many who saw Jesus, but also someone who understood and fully accepted that Jesus was sent from God and that He was and is the Messiah to the world.  John is saying, "I am not just telling you this, I am living this."

The greatest teachers are the ones who dispense more than just knowledge they know but the knowledge that they are living and fully resting their lives upon.  Many times those teachers are not formal teachers with all the academic education but then look at John.  He was a fisherman by trade but He had been with Jesus.  You and I have teachers and have had teachers that have been touched by Jesus and we were taught by their words and their actions.  We have seen it in action and it has helped us understand the love of God better.  John is asking his readers to continue the process so the world can know of the true love of God.

"Lord, You have given us Your Son as the greatest example of love and You have given us the Holy Spirit to be our guide and reminder of Your truth but You have also given us people who You have placed in our lives that have shown us what a genuine Christian is.  You are calling us to do the same for others.  Help me Lord to give to others what has been given to me.  Amen."

Pastor Adam
A simple man serving a great God and the local pastor of Stillwater Community Chapel (stillwater-chapel.org). We are in our 38th year of full time ministry. God directed us to this local body of believers on the Western Range of the Rockies to grow with them in mission and mindedness of Christ.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Galatians #15 - Galatians 6:11-18 - "On The Road Again..."

Image
  Another week closer and it involves some more travel for the Wolfgangs.  I feel like the Willy Nelson song, " On the road again... "  I don't know if I agree with the next line though. " ...I can't wait to get on the road again. " One of the members of the church in Wisconsin calculated that I will travel well over 10,000 miles to make this transition.  Traveling mercies prayers please. Last Sunday we will look at Paul's final words to the churches in Galatia.  He brought them the gospel (good news) message of Jesus and what resulted were churches forming throughout the region.  The letter is to defend that message that our salvation comes from and is in Christ alone.  Christ's sacrifice on the cross was sufficient for the forgiveness of our sins.  The summary statement of the letter is found in  Galatians 6:15 (LSB) .  " For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. "  Translated another way earlier in  Ga
Read more

God gave us a good weather window to travel...yeah God!!!

Image
  Berthoud Pass Here we are at the top of Berthoud Pass.  It was a whirlwind week to conduct a " hand off " service in Wisconsin on 3/17 and then preach a Palm Sunday sermon in Colorado on 3/24.  We give God all the glory for this happening.  So there are two video links at the bottom of this blog.  One is for the Wisconsin service and the other is for the Colorado service.  I racked up over 12,000 in the last 7 weeks.   I love to take these pictures sitting from the front row of chairs and listening to the one God has provided for the church I had been serving for 20 months.  I now have 3 and I am so thankful for the opportunity God gave us to serve Him in this type of ministry over the last 5 years.  It has been great to add to our daily prayer list Zach in Maine, Chris in Ohio and now Stephen in Wisconsin. This was our set up for the 2000+ mile trip.  No " hiccups " except for the strong eastern winds in Kansas.  Of course everything was quite a bit dirtier when
Read more

Resurrection Sunday in a new space...Matthew 27.62-28.20

Image
  Resurrection Sunday has come and gone but it was a sweet day to be with the gathered saints of the Stillwater Community Chapel .  We are venturing through the Gospel of Matthew and this Sunday will take us back to Matthew 1.1 but last Sunday we were in Matthew 27.62-28.20.  It was a lot to cover so the white board was truly a help to keep me on track.  This year in my Resurrection Sunday message, I focused on the contrast of the cover-up story of the disciples stealing the body of Jesus fueled by a bride and the commission of speaking of a risen Lord fueled by boldness . After the service upstairs, we ventured downstairs to the lower level and had a great meal together.  The conversations around the tables allowed us to continue to talk about the passage of Scripture we covered upstairs.  Maybe this is a very informal picture of what happens at the  Waushara Community Church called the " Going Deeper " classes of the Come For More hour following the Sunday morning worshi
Read more