Category: Devotions

Do you ever doubt? I don’t mean do you doubt the existence of God or whether God knows you? But do you doubt your Christian experience as being genuine?

Sometimes I have.

I wonder if I really know Him and if He knows me. But I have found something to help me and it is this verse.

“No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” (1John 4 v 12)

The love for others demonstrates that He is in my life.

John was countering the Antichrists claims that they had an experience of God but they had no need to love other people.

We can be assured of God’s position in our lives as His love is active within us. It is the proof He is here. Love and as a result His presence is then perfected or made complete when this love is active in our lives.

I know God is in me. I know His love is for me and is being made complete. I know this because of His love in my life.

I am purposely spending days in my devotions with God being thankful that He loves me. It does lead to the challenging obligations of what I do with this but I am not moving into that just yet because I am wanting to slow everything down and to ponder awhile on this one fact, God loves me.

“Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” (1 John 4 v 11)

Since God so loved us. There is nothing uncertain in what John is saying. It is an established fact seen in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Since. He has and He does love us. Since. No doubt. Absolute definitive fact. Let it land.

God so loved us. This isn’t cheap. It cost Him everything. If we truly knew how much God loves us then I don’t think we would be able to handle it. I know how much I love my children. I know how much I love my granddaughter. Though it helps me a little to understand it just doesn’t compare with how much God loves me.

Two simple words that reveal much of God’s love for us.

The world did not create love. Love never originated with us. We had nothing to do with it. We would not have known love if it wasn’t for God. Love was from God.

“This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” 1 John 4 v 10

In order for God’s love to be seen and enjoyed then the barrier that we had built between us and God had to be removed through God’s own act of sacrifice: Jesus Christ, His Son.

This is love. Not one ounce of ‘what is in it for me’ or ‘it takes two’ or ‘I’ll meet you half-way’. But 100% God. The whole thing. From Him who did it all and made everything possible that this love can be experienced. A love that sends the self. A love that sacrifices the self. A love that takes the sin of the other onto the self. We knew nothing of that until Jesus came.

God is not angry with you.

“This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.” (1 John 4 v 9)

The scenario is not that God is angry with us and Jesus comes to sort that out.

Jesus Christ is the revealing of God’s heart of love.

Jesus didn’t come to appease God’s anger. He came because God’s heart is so full of love He had to send His one and only.

God is not angry with you. He loves you. He sent His one and only. The Son and the Father are of the same kind. See the Son and you have seen the Father. Everyone loves their own but God loves so much that He sends His own to rescue those who don’t know Him.

The greatest way that God has shown His love is the incarnation. No other display of love compares to this. Those who try to say Jesus is not fully human fully divine (as those antichrists John is speaking against) they know nothing of this love and as a result they know a lot about anger.

But this is not you. For you know that God is love!

God is love.

 ^“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. “ (1 John 4 v 8)

Everything He does is love.

John is not speaking about God’s nature though the truth is in His very essence God is love. But John is speaking in the context of the sending of His Son (John 3:16).

Not every display of love is God. But every display of God is love.

When He speaks love is spoken.

When He sends love is coming.

When He shows up love is here.

Let’s go on a journey of slowing these verses down that are ahead of us. They are amongst the most powerful within the whole Bible. It will take some time but it will do us good! Firstly we will focus on the simple and profound fact that ‘God loves you’.

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.” (1 John 4 v 7)

Love comes from God. Pause.

There is a realm of love that is very different to the world we wake to and live in today. Pause.

When a person enters that realm can you imagine their experience? Pause.

What comes from that realm is love. Pause.

Whatever you receive from God it will be love. Pause.

Let God’s love fall on you right now.

Pause.

Of course they are not necessarily enemies. PRE must lay gently over EOB!

But for John we know he is protecting the Church from those who lead astray with false teaching and prophecies, he calls them ‘antichrists’. Simply because they are denying the orthodox tradition of the person of Jesus Christ and also because of their lack of love for others.

Often we are drawn away to side issues that the world wants to make as supremely important because it involves their lifestyles. There isn’t anything wrong with that providing we come from the premise of this one question: Did God become human in Jesus Christ?

If He didn’t then everything else is a side issue and not relevant.

If He did then what does that mean for the way I live?

“They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. ⁶ We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.” (1 John 4 v 5-6)

John sets the 2 sides parallel, ‘them’ and ‘us’; the ‘world’ and ‘God’; ‘the Spirit of truth’ and the ‘spirit of falsehood’.

PRE is always easier than the EOB’s Incarnation and Resurrection of Jesus Christ and the impact on our lives.

PRE is set within the world we create for ourselves and EOB is from another world.

The speech of PRE is shaped by the world and the the speech of EOB is Christ-shaped.

Everyone can say they are having a personal religious experience but it must sit upon the foundation of established orthodox belief. That’s good for John’s generation and for 2023.

John was not just an apostle, evangelist and one of the leaders of the early church. He was absolutely a Pastor with a Pastor’s heart! And we see this coming through this letter. I have a Pastor’s heart and I understand what it is longing for the very best for your people. Sometimes that longing involves tears and sleepless nights. It means going extra miles and at times pleading that they remain in relationship with Jesus. Most Pastors with that role know these feelings. Look at what John says:-

2:1 My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. 

2:12 I am writing to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of his name.

2:28 And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming.

3:7 Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray.

3:18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

5:21 Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.

Can you see his heart?

So here is our next verse in 1 John 4 v 4 “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.”

Briefly, John is referring to the ‘antichrists-charismatic-dethroners-of-Jesus’ who were casting doubts on the Christian’s salvation. They have left the church and John views them as of the world.

The Pastor pleads: you are from God, you are not like them; you have overcome them, how? The answer is of course that they have rejected their teaching and have resisted their pressure. But there is an even better answer: the Spirit within them is greater than the antichrist spirit in those people.

Today, what are you facing? What pressure is around you? What is casting doubts into your mind? What is seeking to lead you astray? You have and you will again overcome because of the Holy Spirit in you. What spirit comes against you trying to dethrone the Lordship of Jesus? Rise up, stay, hold on and don’t give way, for the Holy Spirit is your advocate, your helper and simply is far greater than anything that stands against you!

“Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. ² This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, ³ but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.” (1 John 4: 1-3)

… do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

1. Not everything you hear can be trusted and believed blindly.
2. Not everything that is inspirational is from Him even though it might make you feel good.
3. Not everything that is false looks false at first otherwise there wouldn’t be a possibility of being led astray.

… This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God.

4. Everything must be filtered through this one test: Jesus is the Christ in flesh sent from God.

5. Every religious experience must come under the submission of the orthodox teaching of and about Jesus Christ.

… This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.

6. Everything the Spirit of Christ does points to Jesus and if it doesn’t then it is the spirit of the antichrist.

Ever wonder if God is pleased with you? Ever have doubts? How do you know that what people claim to be is real?

“Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. ¹⁹ This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: ²⁰ If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. ²¹ Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God ²² and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. ²³ And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. ²⁴ The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.” (1 John 3 v 18-24)

1. Are you reaching out in love to others? let us not love with words or speech but with actions
2. Are you defeating the meanness of your own heart? how we set our hearts at rest in his presence (the heart is always deceitful and will fight against generosity).
3. Are you following the greatness of God or the greatness of your feelings? we know that God is greater than our hearts
4. Are you confident when you come before God? we have confidence before God
5. Are you bold enough to ask God because you have been asked and have given? and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. 
6. Are you believing enough to look like Jesus in your dealings with people? The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them.
7. Are you receiving the Spirit? We know it by the Spirit he gave us.