Month: May 2020

John ends with two short letters, 2 & 3 John, addressed to ‘the CHOSEN lady and her children, 2 John(once again remember that WE ARE CHOSEN BY GOD, we’re not a mistake). The final letter, 3 John is to a man called Gaius.

David Pawson, does an excellent summing up of these two short letters in his ‘Bible Omnibus’. He compares and contrasts the letters regarding ‘love and truth’. John teaches that we need both in harmony, not just one without the other.

2 John                                                         3 John

Danger: too much love                       Danger: too much truth

Attitude: too soft hearted                Attitude: too hard-headed

Door open too wide                            Door shut too tightly

Welcome wrong people                   Refuse right people

Neglect truth                                         Neglect love

Wrong belief                                          Wrong behaviour

We need both;

Female and Male, Love and Truth in women, Truth and love in men.

The lady in 2 John was in danger of inviting in people who were not true followers of Christ(didn’t acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh V7). If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, DO NOT TAKE HIM INTO YOUR HOUSE OR WELCOME HIM eg cults and false religions. Anyone who welcomes them SHARES IN THEIR WICKED WORK.

The man in 3 John does the opposite; Diotrophes, who loves to be first, refuses to welcome the brothers. Genuine teachers were being kept out of the church and refused support. He put people out of the church who wanted to support the true ministries from God. No one person has all the wisdom and knowledge of God, that’s why we’re called to body ministry. The warning here is DON’T IMITATE those who are blocking true ministers of God, LACK OF LOVE and their need to be first.

John, the Elder, identifies the contribution of both people, male and female and also the need for ‘love and truth’ in the body. John continually told the Dear Children to love one another. He also fled a bath house when a man called Cerinthus, a false teacher and enemy of the truth was present, in case the bath house fell on them. We need one another and we can’t promote love at the expense of truth and vice versa.

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God bless and keep you this day.

Why does God lay such heavy emphasis on LOVE in this first letter of John the apostle? Yesterday, we saw that the word ‘love, loved or loves’ occurs 26 times in the last 15 verses of 1Jn 4.

The people of John’s time were idol worshippers, with the exception of the Jews, God’s own chosen people(WE ARE CHOSEN in this day, NEVER FORGET, YOU ARE CHOSEN BY GOD!). Gods like Baal, Molech, Ashtoreth were worshipped out of fear and to appease their anger. That’s why John says, ‘perfect love drives out fear’, God doesn’t want to be worshipped from fear like the false gods. God had revealed His Love nature by sending His Son Jesus to die for men, totally different to the ‘demands for worship’ by demon gods.

The Book of 1John begins by describing this message as the ‘Word of Life’.

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard…seen with our eyes…and our hands have touched — this we proclaim concerning the Word of Life.  The life appeared; we have seen it and testified to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.  We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us.  1Jn 1:1-3

The Book ends with the words; ‘Dear children(still addresses the people in love), keep yourselves from idols(something we’re told to do)’!

When Moses was a long time up the mountain, the people told Aaron, Moses own brother, to make them a golden calf to worship. Exodus 32 If we fail to worship Yahweh we will worship something else, for example Mammon/money and that idol will not be loving and kind to us. The same with spirits of religion, they want to steal our freedom in the Lord and draw us back into performance oriented religious works.

It’s not about false religion, it’s about relationship with our loving Heavenly Father. Seek first the Kingdom… and all these things will be given unto you.

God bless and keep you this day.

Perfect Love drives out fear. 1Jn 4:18

God has called us to relationship, a love relationship, with Himself. In 1Jn 4:7-21 the word love, loved or loves is used 26 times in 15 verses, John is truly the ‘Love’ apostle.

Much of the time the Church tends to major on doctrine and there are rules for governing the Christian life. However, Jesus said, to love the Lord with all our heart, soul and mind(Matt 22:37) and our neighbour as ourselves, fulfills the commandments. A life lived in love will keep all the commandments.

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. This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends(John speaks warmly to us his readers once again)since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 1Jn 4:9-11

The initiative was and is with God, He sent Jesus into the world ‘that we might live through Him’, live with His nature in the world. He reached out to the world through Jesus and then gave us the grace to respond to Him.

We know that we live in Him and He in us because He has given us of His Spirit… If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. 1 Jn 4:13,15, 16

God has given us His Holy Spirit to assure us that we are His children and to help us and guide us in our lives while we’re here on earth.

In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgement, because in this world we are like Him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 1Jn 4:17,18

The Word does talk about the ‘Fear of the Lord’, a holy reverence and awe for Almighty God, but if we truly love God and our brothers and sisters, then there should be no fear of punishment. It’s interesting that John says fear and perfect love are mutually exclusive, cannot exist together!

God wants children to share His creation with Him in eternity and the word He uses most to describe His own nature is Love. We have received His invitation to join Him, so let’s yield to the Love of God in our lives today.

God bless and keep you this day.

Choose your channel! Which channel are we listening to today, Heavenly or earthly. We can tune in to a channel that the world cannot hear, but it takes time and focus. 1Jn 4:5,6

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. 1Jn 4:4

God already sees us as victorious in Christ, because He lives in us by His Spirit. Give thanks that the Greater One is in us today.

John goes on to contrast two different groups of people on the earth and to what or whom they’re listening.

They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. 1Jn 4,5

The world listens to its own and so does the Kingdom! Only by God’s grace and mercy can the people of the world, we were all in it, begin to hear God’s voice. The initiative is with God, without Him first speaking to us we cannot hear.

This is how we recognise the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood(lying spirit). 1Jn 4:6

John tells us that the Spirit we can hear is a sure test of who we ourselves are in that realm.

Deuteronomy 28, the Chapter of Blessings and Curses over Israel begins with the statement, ‘IF you shall diligently obey the VOICE OF THE LORD… BLESSINGS! V15 However if you will not obey the VOICE OF THE LORD… CURSES’. The watershed or dividing line for Israel in their inheritance was Listening to and Obeying God’s Voice.

John said the same to the new church, whoever knows God will listen to His Voice.

God bless and keep you today.

LOVE the brethren, TEST the spirits, 1Jn 4:1-3

Dear friends… We’ve seen how John uses the address, ‘dear children’, but he also speaks to his readers as, ‘dear friends’. It’s not just the message that the apostle John is sharing but the Spirit it’s coming from! John tells us that the world has the Cain nature, but we must love our brothers and sisters.

1Jn2:11 Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command, but an old one, which you have had from the beginning…

1Jn3:2,3 Dear friends, NOW we are children of God and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as He is pure(hope of the Lord’s appearance keeps us pure).

1Jn3:21 Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from Him anything we ask… because we do what pleases Him(live clean).

1Jn4:1 Dear friends(this is a friendly warning) do not believe every spirit, but TEST the spirits to see whether they are from God(here’s the reason), because many false prophets have gone out into the world. The language of false religion in the days ahead may well be something like, ‘Just love everyone , no matter what wickedness they’re involved in’. God wants us to love Him and not evil. Jesus never compromised with false religion and neither can we. The late brother Neville Johnson, saw a being of light before him, but it didn’t speak. He asked it, ‘if Jesus had come in the fleshV2, human form’, but still no answer. Then he asked if ‘Jesus had come in his flesh, Neville a minister of the Lord’ and it reacted violently. We can use the same questions, as 1Jn4:2 tells us to TEST the spirits.

Peter also uses the same form of address to believers; 1Peter 2:11, Dear friends, I urge you, AS ALIENS AND STRANGERS IN THE WORLD(that’s who we are, long or short time), to abstain from sinful desires, which war(strong word) against your soul.

Jude 3,  Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and DENY JESUS CHRIST(the test for everything spiritual) our only Sovereign and Lord.

The Bottom Line is that we are called to Love like our Lord, but to test the spirits and never to embrace or align with anything that is not of Him.

God bless and keep you today.

We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, 1Jn 3:14

This is a very sobering scripture, the word ‘Anyone’ occurs twice, it implies there are no exceptions.

It is interesting that the previous verses go all the way back to the beginning of Genesis, the earliest days of man’s existence. The command to ‘love one another’ has been there from the very beginning, it has been a constant on God’s agenda.

This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous. Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you. 1Jn 3:11

At the end of these verses, the apostle John tells us ‘not to be surprised if the world hates us’. Cain wasn’t recognised as one of God’s children, he had another nature. John is telling us what we have to be, but he’s warning us that the Cain nature will hate us. Believers in many places have experienced this and the time is coming when persecution will be widespread. They tried to kill John but the Lord preserved him and his writings for us.

If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. 1Jn 3:17

John urges believers that their love needs to be more than just words, there needs to be corresponding actions with our words. I’m thinking just now of Corrie Ten Boom, in the Netherlands, during World War 2 and how they risked their lives to hide Jewish people from the Nazis. That love was more than just words.

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People are being blessed and encouraged with prophetic words and counselling from the ministry, contact us at the above webpage for your word today and please remember to donate.

The Lord bless and keep you and make His face shine upon you and give you peace.

 

 

And now, dear children, CONTINUE IN HIM so that when He appears we may be confident and unashamed before Him at His coming. 1 John 2:28

John warns us not to be enticed by this world and the things of the world, they’ll disappoint. Then he tells us that there are deceiving spirits, anti-christ(anti, against and ultimately to replace Christ in us). He tells us we have an anointing which can teach us what is of the Lord. He warns us to remain in Christ.

V28 says we must CONTINUE IN HIM. We need to be righteous like Jesus and not go on sinning.

“Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. But you know that He appeared so that He might take away our sins and in Him is no sin. No one who lives in Him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him”. 1 John 3:4-6

So there is a battle going on for the souls of men and women, the things of this world and the spirit of anti-christ are trying to entice us and our own soulish nature still wants to sin. So what’s the answer?

“How great is the love the father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! Dear friends(again John calls us children and now friends), now we are children of God and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when He appears we shall be like Him… Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as He is pure”.

Today is Ascension Day, commemorating the Lord’s return to heaven but we know that He’s returning for His Bride. John tells us that this hope, of His imminent return, will purify us. I believe people who don’t have this hope (confident expectation) will be seriously disadvantaged in these last days.

“No-one who is born of God will continue to sin, BECAUSE GOD’S SEED REMAINS IN HIM; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God”. God’s very own nature has been placed in our spirits, we are truly children of God and the whole cosmos is awaiting our unveiling — the climax of all creation.

May God bless and keep us in His hand as the day of His return draws nearer.

The battle of the ages is over who will be worshipped!

Immediately after 1 John warns us against loving the world, it tells us,  ‘this is the last hour and as you have heard the anti-christ is coming, even now many anti-christs have come’. 1 John 2:18 (‘anti’ has two meanings, the most commonly known one is ‘against’, but it also means ‘in place of’ or to take the place of, replace Christ). The enemy wants to replace God and steal the worship that is rightfully His.

John talks about ‘people going out from us, … For if they belonged they would have remained with us’. He is warning the people against being drawn away from the truth, to a different spirit.

John then begins to talk about the anointing we have received from God Himself. ‘But you have an anointing from the Holy One and all of you know the truth…  see that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you(hold fast to the truth, don’t be drawn away). If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. And this is what He promised us – even eternal life’.

This section ends with a further three mentions of the anointing we have received,

‘But as His anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit – just as it has taught you, remain in Him’. 1 John 2:28. I believe John is talking about the ‘inner witness’ each of us has received through the Spirit.

I think Kenneth Hagan told a story about a young Christian woman who went to some church meetings, hosting a visiting speaker. She was inexperienced in the faith, but there was a fresh  anointing in her from recently coming to know the Lord. She felt that the ministry was jarring her spirit, she had sensitivity, so she left and didn’t return. Other believers, older in the faith, sat on in the meetings, but suffered because the fruit, or outcome was bad. We too need to be sensitive to the Spirit in us and not be led astray, especially in these days.

He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8

God bless and keep you in all His ways this day and forever.

 

“My dear children” or “dear children”, a little phrase used nine times in 1 John, speaks of a loving relationship. As we previously said, John is the Love Apostle, the one whom the Lord loved, personal relationship.

The Church today is a balance of organisation and relationships and it’s not always easy to get that balance right. I remember reading a story about the elderly apostle John being carried in to speak at a meeting. He told the people to ‘love one another’ and when they asked him if he’d anything more to say, he told them that if they did that it would be enough(love covers many sins).

So what did John remind the ‘dear children’ in his first letter?

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

1:12 I write to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of His name.

1:13 I write to you, dear children, because you have known the Father.

2:18 Dear children this is the last hour; and as you have heard the anti-christ is coming, even now many anti-christs have come.

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. He who does what is right is righteous just as He is righteous.

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

4:4 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.

5:21 Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.

John was telling the early church what they should do and not do, but he was speaking as a loving spiritual father who had been through much, to a persecuted church. No matter what the teaching or doctrine, it should come from a heart of love. God wants relationship with children who worship Him in Spirit(the same Spirit and truth), but the genuine relationship flows from love.

God bless and keep you today.

Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world the love of the Father is not in them. 1 John 2:15

John once again talks about Love; what we set our hearts on and what can draw our hearts away from God. He warns us that ‘love for the world’ will cancel our love for God.

NO ONE can serve two masters. Matt 6:24

Derek Prince once told a story about a young Scandinavian woman, a pastor’s daughter who’d stayed with them. Barbara began to find life in the Pentecostal Church restrictive and dull. She was listening to her friends outside church and decided they were having more fun and enjoying life lots more than she was. She went to her parents and told them that she wasn’t going to be involved in Church anymore, she was going to try the things that her young friends were doing. Her parents wisely didn’t argue with her and drive her further away from them, instead they told her that they would pray for her.

Barbara’s dream. Soon after this she had a warning dream. She saw two cities, one with bright, flashing, neon lights and one with a strong, steady glow. A suave, sophisticated man invited her to come with him to the city with the bright flashing lights. Things started well, but as they progressed she noticed the lights of the city were becoming duller and the figure who was leading her was became uglier. Soon they were in a very dark and threatening part of the city and she realised with a shock that the figure who was leading her was none other than the devil himself. Meanwhile the light from the other city remained strong and steady. She woke up and realised that the dream had been a warning against her intended course, her parents prayers had been answered.

‘Don’t love the world’s ways. Don’t love the world’s goods. Love of the world SQUEEZES OUT love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world – wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important – has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him. The world and all it’s wanting, wanting, wanting is on its way out —  but who ever does what God wants is set for eternity’. 1 John 2:15-17 MSG

The moral of the story is that ‘love of the world’ disappoints and even destroys! May you find the true light of God’s love that never fades in your life today.

God bless and keep you.