Daily Devotional #11 (1 John 2:1-11)

As we turn our attention the the second chapter of 1 John, notice that in the first eleven verses, John gives us three results of maintaining fellowship with the Lord. Let me remind you that our fellowship is the practical outworking of the Believer's relationship with God. Our fellowship with God results in the changing of our mind, will, and emotions which are the three components of our soul. Our souls are the arenas wherein our sanctification takes place.

The Apostle John writes in 1 John 2:1-2, "My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 2 And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world."

As indicated in these two verses, the first sign that we are growing in fellowship with the Lord is that we are making a habit of drawing nearer to the Lord. As a result we discover that our lives are being built on the truth which is what God has said in His word on any given subject. As we have pointed out before, when we sin, we are ignoring what God has said on a given subject and we are going our own way. However, when we listen to His definition of things and apply His teachings, we discover that we are walking in the Spirit. The Holy Spirit always works in tandem with His word, producing the life of the Lord Jesus through our yielded lives. And, as a result, we grow in ministry effectiveness and wisdom.

Now, as John indicates here in verse 1, if we sin, and we will, we must remember that the Lord Jesus continues to be our Advocate. This means that even though we still sin, He will not abandon us. And when we grow in His righteousness, we still need His advocacy because we can never be good enough to earn God's favor. This is also the reason John draws our attention to the fact that the Lord Jesus is our propitiation (satisfying sacrifice) before the Father. John is saying, as we grow in His wisdom and recognize the stupidity of sin, we will not become sinless. And, by the way, when you sin, God doesn't turn His back on you because you sin.

Now, in verses 3-6, John gives us the second result of walking with the Lord. It is making it our habit of obeying His word. 1 John 2:3-6 reads, " 3 Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. 4 He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5 But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. 6 He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked." Notice the progression in these verses. We first keep His commandments, then we keep His word, then we walk as He walked. John, here, is providing for us a portrait of our growth in God's wisdom as we yield to His truth. There is an increasing intimacy seen in these verses. His commandments lead to His word which leads to His way of living.

Finally in verses 7-11, we are given the third expression of walking with the Lord. It is that we will love other Believers. 1 John 2:7-11 reads, "7 My dear friends, I am not writing a new command to you but an old command you have had from the beginning. It is the teaching you have already heard. 8 But also I am writing a new command to you, and you can see its truth in Jesus and in you, because the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining. 9 Anyone who says, “I am in the light,” but hates a brother or sister, is still in the darkness. 10 Whoever loves a brother or sister lives in the light and will not cause anyone to stumble in his faith. 11 But whoever hates a brother or sister is in darkness, lives in darkness, and does not know where to go, because the darkness has made that person blind." The Greek word that the Apostle John uses here for the word love is "phileo" which is brotherly affectionate love. There will be a genuine brotherly love in the heart of the Believer who is walking in the light toward his brother or sister in the Lord. In other words, before we are American, we are brothers in the Lord. Before we are any skin color or ethnicity, we are brothers in the Lord.

There you have it, three expressions of walking in the light (walking with the Lord):  making it our habit of drawing nearer to the Lord, making it our habit of obeying His word, and making it our habit to affectionately loving those who also believe in the Lord Jesus.

1 John 1:10

Today, we consider the third thing that prevents the Believer in Christ from enjoying fellowship with the Lord Jesus. Let me remind you that our relationship with the Lord is different than our fellowship with Him. Our relationship with God is the result of the work that the Lord Jesus accomplished on the cross on our behalf and our trust in that alone. Our fellowship or sanctification is based upon the choices that we make in reference to His definition of things as designated in His word. It is our justification that gets us into heaven when we die, it's our sanctification that gets heaven into us now.

If we say we have not sinned, we make God a liar, and we do not accept God’s teaching. (1 John 1:10). The third thing that prevents our fellowship with the Lord happens when we rationalize or excuse sin in our lives. When we do this, we place ourselves in the position to be numbed to the voice and presence of the Lord in our lives.

John not only says this is an evasion of reality, but it is also a direct accusation against God. "We make him a liar," he says, "and his word is not in us." In other words, we are shifting the blame squarely upon God. There are only two people in life, as far as our basic relationship is concerned, us and God. So if we say it is not our fault, we are saying it is his fault.

Now this excuse goes back to the Garden of Eden. When God came looking for man in Genesis 3:9, he said to him, "Why did you do this thing?" Adam said, "Well, it's the woman you gave me. It's your fault." And when God said to the woman, "Why did you do it?" she said, "It is the serpent. It's your fault because you let him talk to me." So, the blame comes right back to God. We are, in effect, calling God the one at fault.

But John uses even a worse name. He says, "we make him a liar." In Romans, Paul writes, "What can separate us from the love of Christ?" (Romans 8:35). Then he goes through the list of possibilities. Can life, or death, or things present (your circumstances), or things to come (the pressure of the future), or height, or depth, or time, or eternity, or anything else in all creation, separate us from the strength of Christ, the love of Christ. But that is not what we say. We say to God, "There are a lot of things that cut me off from you and make it impossible for me to do what you ask me to do. Difficulties cut me off, fatigue, sickness, and pressure. Therefore, God, you're a liar. You say that none of these things will do it; I say they do! Now, one of us is telling the truth and one of us is lying, and I know who it is; it's you!" Think of that charge! We say, "Lord, it is your fault, you are not true." 

Accepting God's definition of things is what made Abram of the Old Testament a Jew. Before he was called of God, Abram was a Gentile living in a place that is southern Iraq today. This is key for us to understand, and it is the thrust of what our sanctification is all about. Most Believers believe today that our sanctification is about an improving us. But it is not.

Our sanctification is about a dying us. As we die to ourselves, saying "no" to our definition of things, and allow God to define all things, we find that we are walking billboards for the glory of God. This is what you and I were made for. And the enemy, that arch enemy of old, wants to subvert this ultimate goal of God in our lives. You see, the goal of our sanctification, its purpose is pointing others, not to us, but to Him. Therefore, we must be diligent to recognize the enemy's scheme of trying to get us to call our shots. We must be careful not to rationalize or excuse our sinful choices. We must be careful to confess our sin, agreeing with His definition of all things and live out of those definitions.

Devotional #9 (1 John 1:8-9)

For the past few days, we have been considering 1 John 1:5-7 which reads, " ⁵ Here is the message we have heard from Christ and now announce to you: God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. ⁶ So if we say we have fellowship with God, but we continue living in darkness, we are liars and do not follow the truth. ⁷ But if we live in the light, as God is in the light, we can share fellowship with each other. Then the blood of Jesus, God’s Son, cleanses us from every sin."

There are three main themes throughout 1 John: Relationship, Fellowship and Joy. Fellowship is not automatic, and the key is to walk in the light. "If we walk in the light we have fellowship, one with another" (1 John 1:7). Walking in the light, as we have already seen, means to see and treat things as the light reveals them to be. Walking in the light involves honesty, and obedience. This is the key to fellowship, and fellowship is the key to enjoying His joy.

Having considered the first thing that keeps us from walking in the light in v.6-7, let us now consider the second.

8 If we say we have no sin, we are fooling ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 But if we confess our sins, he will forgive our sins, because we can trust God to do what is right. He will cleanse us from all the wrongs we have done.  (1 John 1:8-9)

In v.8 we read, "If we say we have no sin”. In v.9 we read, "If we confess our sins."

Now, there is a very important distinction to point out here, the distinction between the root which is sin, singular, and the fruit, which are sins, plural. Sin is that wicked lure in us which makes us want to play God in any given situation.

There are many kinds of sins, but all from one root, sin. John says if we say we have no sin, that is, no capacity to commit sins, if we deny the very possibility of sins, then we deceive ourselves.  The man who ignores the light deceives others, but seldom himself.

There is nothing more pathetic than the person who denies the reality of sin. Sanctification is viewed by them as an uprooting of the root of sin.

The problem with this is that the scriptures never make a claim to sinless perfection. The only one who could say, and did say, that he was without sin was the Lord Jesus himself.

As Paul warns his readers, "He who thinks he stands, take heed, lest he fall," 1 Corinthians 10:12). This is why the Christian is often encouraged to walk in fear and trembling. As Paul writes again, "If any man thinks he knows something, he knows nothing as he ought to know it," 1 Corinthians 8:2). When we think we have come to the place where we have mastered the processes of walking in the Spirit, then we need to think again. We have not yet learned it all.

We read in Matthew 15:19, "Out of the heart of man proceed murders, adulteries, fornications, evil thoughts.”

The root is still planted deep within the human nature and we shall not escape it until the body is redeemed. Of course, we do not need to yield to it, that is the point of redemption. As we learn to walk in the Spirit there can be great periods of time when we walk free from the enslavement of sin. But when we do sin, we must not try to hide it or cover it up. We must be diligent to confess sins when we commit them.

Now the word confess does not mean to ask for forgiveness. Christ’s work for us upon the cross has already done all that is necessary to forgive us. What God wants us to do is to look at the sin before us and call it what he calls it. That means to agree with His definition of it. Fess means "to say," and con means "with." "To say with" God what he says about this thing, that is confessing sin.

The promised cleansing in v.9 is necessary for the Believer to grow in fellowship with the One who procured the gift of relationship to the one who believes.

Daily Devotional #8 (1 John 1:6-7)

6 So if we say we have fellowship with God, but we continue living in darkness, we are liars and do not follow the truth. 7 But if we live in the light, as God is in the light, we can share fellowship with each other. Then the blood of Jesus, God’s Son, cleanses us from every sin. (1 John 1:6-7)

As we have seen, there are three themes that continue throughout this first epistle of John, relationship, fellowship and joy.

Today, we will entertain the question, how is it that we can have relationship with God and lack fellowship?

To begin, we must distinguish and understand the difference between relationship and fellowship. Relationship is becoming a member of the family of God, which is based upon our justification by faith in the finished work of the Jesus Christ on the cross. It is established by inviting Him to come into our lives and hearts. John makes that clear at the end of this letter. "He who has the Son has life [that is relationship]; but he who has not the Son of God has not life [he does not have a relationship]," (1 John 5:12). The Christian life starts right there with this matter of relationship.

Fellowship, on the other hand, is experiencing Christ. Fellowship works in concert with the Bible describes as Sanctification. Whereas, Justification is a one time event, Sanctification is a process whereby our soul (mind, will, and emotions) are being changed by the Lord Jesus Himself. One can not have fellowship until he has established relationship, but you can certainly have relationship without fellowship. Relationship puts us into the family of God, but fellowship permits the life of the family to shine out through us. Relationship means that all God has is potentially ours, but fellowship means we are actually drawing upon that, and His resources are visible in our experience. Relationship is possessing God; fellowship is God, possessing us. Fellowship is the key to vital Christianity. The important question is, as Christians are we enjoying fellowship with the Father and with his Son, experiencing all things in common together.

Now, there are three ways by which Believers miss out on fellowship with God.

If you look at the 1 John 1, you will see three times John uses the phrase, "if we say": v.6, "If we say we have fellowship," v.8, "If we say we have no sin," and v.10, "If we say we have not sinned."

Three times a profession is indicated (relationship), but the fellowship falls short of the profession. John says, If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not live according to the truth; but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. (1 John 1:6-7)

This is a Believer in Christ who has established a relationship. He claims that the life of Jesus Christ is his in experience as well as in potential. But, John says, he does not live in a way that corresponds with his claim. He does not live according to the truth. His life is lacking the influence of the eternal which is what the scriptures refer to as "eternal life" or zoe in the Greek.

The Apostle writes, he is walking in darkness. When we walk in darkness, it is not the equivalent to sinning. We sin because we walk in darkness. Darkness is the absence of light. Wherever there is no light there is darkness. To walk in darkness means to walk as though there were no God, for God is light. When we turn off the light, the darkness rules. This is not a rare condition among believers.  John starts with this problem because it is one of the most wide-spread problems with Believers.

So, what does walking in darkness look like? The writer of Hebrews warns us that there would be a tendency to do this as we draw near the close of the age. He says, "Do not forsake the gathering of yourselves together, as the manner of some is...," Hebrews 10:25).

Some people stop coming to church that effectively teaches the Word of God. The Word of God is a channel of God's light. The Word itself is light. It penetrates and searches, it seeks out our inner life and exposes it to us. If we stop avoid the light, there will be a growing effect, we are no longer made uncomfortable by the Word.

Another way that we do not experience "zoe" is to stop reading the Scriptures. The Word is light, but we refuse the light and we, subsequently, walk in darkness.

Another way is to never examine ourselves. We do not ask ourselves searching questions as to where we are in the Christian life. The Apostle Paul says, "Examine yourselves, whether you be in the faith!" (2 Corinthians 13:5). One of the most serious problems among Christians is that we never admit that anything is going wrong, or that we have problems, or times when our faith is tested. We never tell anyone about these. Therefore we walk in darkness.

Remember, that darkness is the absence of light. To walk in the light is to have everything open, exposed to God, or to anyone else that is interested. But to walk in darkness is to talk about love and joy and power, but to live a lie. It is from fellowship, the sharing of the life of Christ, that there comes strength. To ignore light is to choose weakness. Now what is the answer?

John says, "walk in the light," that is the answer. In other words, not behaving perfectly, but examining ourselves, being willing to look at ourselves, listen seriously to what others say about us and ask ourselves how much truth is there in it, and not immediately grow defensive. If we take down our fences and our facades and open up to others, tell them what we are going through and encourage them to open up to us, admit our faults, this is walking in the light. As James puts it, "confess your faults, and pray one for another," James 5:16).

Daily Devotional #7 Lights Energizes (1 John 1:5)

For the past few days we have been considering 1 John 1:5 "This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all."

As we have considered, light reveals and measures, but light energizes, as well.

In the late 80's, DC Talk produced a song, In The Light. In that song, we discover the lyrics, "I keep trying to find a life, On my own, apart from You, I am the king of excuses, I've got one for every selfish thing I do, What's going on inside of me?, I despise my own behavior, This only serves to confirm my suspicions, That I'm still a man in need of a Savior, I wanna be in the Light, As You are in the Light

The most dramatic quality about light is that it imparts life, it activates, it quickens. When the sun rises each day, it discovers the world in darkness. The sun awakens all that sleeps.The birds began to sing, and the bees began to buzz. The light energizes life. This happens every morning. That is what God does. He leads His creation through the darkness into an ever-growing experience of life and vitality and productivity. Many have lost this vision, and for them life is dead. dull and meaningless. Over time, this meaninglessness fills with increasing despair. Man's low-voltage substitute for life cries out for light, and God is light.

Many wonder, "Okay, if God is light and he energizes, then why does it only seem to happen to a few?" It is right here that John continues.

⁶ If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; ⁷ but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. ⁸ If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. ⁹ If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. ¹⁰ If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us. (1 John 1:6-10)
 
Here, John goes on to point out that there are three conditions that shut out the healing, cleansing, satisfying light so that though it is shining it does not change us. God is light and He does reveal truth, He does measure life, he does give us a reference point by which the false can be separated from the true. Best of all, He satisfies, He energizes, He vitalizes. But He does so only as we learn to address the conditions that hide the light from us.

Tomorrow, we will consider the first of these three conditions.

Daily Devotional #6 (Light Measures 1 John 1:5)

When I was a young boy, I was asked by a man to help him clear some land that he had purchased. At the end of that day, he asked if I would help him move some lumber from one spot to another. As we moved the two by fours, he would hold each one up, look down it and express that it was good or bad. I had never seen anyone do such a thing. I learned that day that a board was useful due to whether it was crooked or not.

As I think back to that measuring moment, I am reminded that light factors in to the measurement of things. Light is the most common measuring stick in the universe. We measure whether things are straight or crooked by light. Surveyors use light to measure distances and angles, to see whether they are up or down, high or low, right or left. They have a little instrument they sight through with a small telescope on it.

How does it work? It uses light as a measurement. In the vast, far reaches of space today the only adequate measuring stick is light years, the distance measured by the speed of light. That is what light does, and that is what God does.  God is a measuring stick, a point of reference. One can use God to measure everything else.  People are forever seeking to solve the puzzles of life on every level around us.

Every one of us, are constantly asking ourselves the question, how do I know which one is right? How do I know who has the real answers? Where do I get a measuring stick that can be applied to these voices I hear?

This is where God comes in. God sees man according to the truth, according to the light and all the conflicting voices that we hear can be sorted out and measured by his revelation of what truth is. The Bible is the only measure there is. When you measure anything against God's Word, you learn the unpleasant truth that may be quite uncomfortable to you at the moment, that your dream will not work, it will only increase your misery, it will hurt and destroy everyone involved. Because you see that and have learned to trust the light a bit, you say "All right, even though I want to do this, I won't." Later on, the blindness passes and you are so grateful, so eternally thankful, that God's light stopped you from going on into darkness. "The light shines in darkness,"John says, "and the darkness cannot put it out," (John 1:5).

The problem with many, today, is that we have not fallen hard enough on the truth to discover the substance therein. The sad thing is that many will have to fall hard to come to the place where we are convinced of the truth. This was my story. I lacked a point of reference. I had not lived enough. And, when it became evident that my world was about to shatter with the passing of my earthly father, I got serious with the truth. God's truth has been faithful ever since that faithful day in 1981 to measure all things for me.

Now, I do not always get the light and the darkness defined correctly. This happens, partly, due to the fact that I am not always diligent to listen to truth which is His definition of anything.

My dad, the late Bob Young, was often quoted, "Some people are so narrow-minded, they could look through a key hole with both eyes."  I have discovered that my narrow-mindedness has been useful to my Father who is in heaven. There have been times when He has left me in the dark, so that His measurement would be even more profound when I was in the position to see it.

Daily Devotional #5 Light Reveals (1 John 1:5)

In our last devotional, we considered the fact that God is light. We introduced the idea that since the Lord Jesus is light, He, like light, reveals.

In the CEV, 1 John 1:5, reads, "Jesus told us that God is light and doesn’t have any darkness in him. Now we are telling you."

Light enables us to see things we could not see before. This is exactly what John means here in 1 John 1:5. In the same way that light reveals reality, God does, as well. God, through His Son, Jesus Christ, opens the eyes of mankind's heart and life comes into focus and we see more clearly. This does not happen in one moment. It is a gradual process. This explains the purpose of God sending His Spirit into human hearts, so that we might see reality.

Light reveals, and so does God. The mysteries of life will gradually unfold and become increasingly clear, as the light shines upon them. When I first met Jesus Christ and began to understand His message. Bit by bit things began to become more clear. I must tell you that many questions remain, but I am no longer confused. The road ahead is more clear, and I have discovered that the solution to my troubles remain within me. The problem really has never been outside of me.

As I began to see that the source of most of my problems were within me, I began to understand that He was the solution to those problems. The mystery of what the scriptures refer to as the flesh was gradually being revealed to me by the light as He revealed it to me through His word. That is what God does. He is light and His light reveals our darkness.

I have discovered that the answers of this life are best discovered as the Lord Jesus pushes back the darkness, even the darkness I discover within my own soul. The resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ is not just a feature of Christianity, it is the main event. His resurrection is not only a demonstration of the Father’s power, it is also a validation of the offering that the Lord Jesus made on our behalf. God was satisfied with the sacrifice Christ offered for the sins of all mankind. He said, “It is finished!” God said, “I am satisfied”. Then God raised Him, and He ascended to the right hand of God to intercede for His people. The resurrection then is the greatest event in history. It is the most significant expression of the power of God on behalf of all who would believe. We are saved to be raised from the dead and to spend eternity in heaven with Him and those who have gone before. The purpose of salvation is a resurrected people.

Because Christ conquered death, because He conquered sin, we will be raised to dwell with Him forever. Romans 10:9-10, “If you confess Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”

That is necessary for salvation. That’s why the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 says, “It is this truth of the resurrection which you heard, and which you received, and which you believed, and in which you stand.” It is the very essence of the gospel.

These many years that I have tried to walk with Him, He has been faithful to shine His light into the darkness that I yet find to be in my soul. This darkness has always been there. In fact, even though He has shone His light in there, the darkness will never be dispelled this side of heaven. The fact that He is the light, he is faithfully, daily freeing me from my own darkness.

In addition to revealing to me the dangers of the darkness, He also reveals to me the joys of His light. His light reveals what everyone is so desperately searching for in this world. What is that, you ask? Hope. And the Christian's hope is directly connected to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. The stone was rolled away so we could see in to the tomb, to see that He is risen.  God is the light that reveals the good and the bad. And, as He reveals the good and the bad to us, we discover that we are being freed from the darkness and freed to the light. In this light there is hope unspeakable.

Bonaparte once said, "leaders are dealers in hope." Let me encourage you today to give a little hope to those around you. They could use it. They, too, are being freed from the darkness into his wonderful light.

But that is not light's only quality. Light also measures, which will be the topic of our next devotional. See you then, as we contemplate the Light that measures.

Daily Devotional #4 (1 John 1:5)

1 John 1:5 reads, "Here is the message we have heard from Christ and now announce to you: God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all."

Today, we continue in our study of the first epistle from the hand of John the Mender -- the man who was called to follow Jesus when he was mending his nets. That act became symbolic of the ministry of this man, the one who mends things, who calls us back to the truth of God's definition of things.

As we saw in our last devotional, John began by presenting to us a life, a life which appeared in history in the form of a person, a person who was touched and seen and heard and handled. He was, therefore, no mere figment of the imagination.

He was not invented through the longings wishful thinking. He lived and walked among us, John said. We touched him, we saw him, we heard him, we handled him.

The message he has declared to us is that there is a way to share this life today. There is a way that you can have a personal relationship with this person, today. And, when you do, John says, you will experience two wonderful things:

First, fellowship: The experience of having everything in common with Him dwelling in you.  This will result in joy -- that excitement which is not subject to circumstances, but continues to burn within you.

This eternal life, as the Bible references it, will occur as we come to know this living God.

Now, going on, he says that this life was also a message.

What is the message of his life? "God is light and in him is no darkness at all."

The Gospel of John includes these words: "In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in darkness, and the darkness can never put it out," {John 1:4-5}. The Lord Jesus himself said, "I am the light of the world. If any man follow me, he shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of life," {John 8:12}.

A life that is light. Again, he said, "This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world and men love darkness and will not come to the light because their deeds are evil," {John 3:19}.

"God is light". Notice that John does not say, "Light is God." We cannot reverse it. If it were, "Light is God," then, those who worship that ball of gas which is suspended in midair some 93 million miles away from us are truer worshipers of God than we.

No, it says, "God is light." That means that what light is, on a physical plane, God is on every level of human experience. What light does, God does. What light accomplishes, God accomplish in our yielded lives. Light is the fastest thing known in the universe. And we have learned that light does three things: 1) light reveals, 2) light measures, and 3) light energizes.

Tomorrow, we will consider how God is like light which reveals. Then, the next day we will consider how He measures. Then, the next day, we will consider how He energizes His people.

Finally, the Apostle John was known as the Mender of nets and people. How did he get there? He had the LIGHT within.

Daily Devotional #3 (1 John 1:1-4)

In 1 John 1:1-4 we read, 1 We write you now about what has always existed, which we have heard, we have seen with our own eyes, we have looked at, and we have touched with our hands. We write to you about the Word that gives life. ² He who gives life was shown to us. We saw him and can give proof about it. And now we announce to you that he has life that continues forever. He was with God the Father and was shown to us. ³ We announce to you what we have seen and heard, because we want you also to have fellowship with us. Our fellowship is with God the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. ⁴ We write this to you so we may be full of joy.

In these four verses three things are highlighted: A relationship, a fellowship, and a joy.

John writes,  "He who gives life was shown to us." Twice he says it. What does he mean by it?  He means that this eternal life was visible in the relationship of the Father and the Son.

Jesus did not come to show us God, he came to show us man related to God.

As we look at the life of Jesus we see this secret relationship, this lost secret of humanity, this new way by which man is intended to live -- continual dependence upon the life of the Father.

In John 14:10, He said, “I don't do these things, it's not I who accomplishes these works, it is the Father who dwells in me.”

He simply looked to God and trusted God to be working through him. In doing this he expressed exactly the mind of God. It is that life that John is talking about, a new way of living, a new way…in dependence upon God.

"This life was manifest," John says, "and we are going to tell you about it, we are going to proclaim it to you."

Then he says that this life will result in two wonderful things: First, fellowship. John arrives upon the most beautiful thing about family life -- fellowship, companionship:

In 1 John 1:3, we read, We announce to you what we have seen and heard, because we want you also to have fellowship with us. Our fellowship is with God the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.

Fellowship means "to have all things in common." When you have something in common with another you can have fellowship with him. If you have nothing in common, you have no fellowship.
We all share human life in common.

Most of us share American citizenship in common. But John is talking about that unique fellowship which is only the possession of those who share life in Jesus Christ together. This makes them one and that is the basis for the appeal of Scripture to live together in tenderness and love toward one another. Not because we are inherently wonderful people or remarkable personalities, or that we are naturally gracious, kind, loving, and tender all the time -- for at times we are grouchy, nasty, and irritating. But we are still to love one another. That is his point.

Why? Because we have something in common. We share the life of the Lord Jesus, and therefore we have fellowship with one another. There is not only the horizontal relationship but that, in turn, depends upon a vertical one.

He goes on, "and our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ."

The horizontal relationship is directly related to the vertical one. If the vertical is not right, the horizontal one will be wrong. Now, fellowship there means exactly the same thing it means elsewhere. It means having things in common. Here we come to the most remarkable thing about Christian life, communion, or fellowship with Christ. It takes two English words to bring out what this really means.

There is, first of all, a partnership, i.e., the sharing of mutual interests, resources, and labor together.
God and I, working together, a partnership. All that I have is put at his disposal. All of my mind, all of my body. True, these are gifts of God, but they are put at my disposal to do with as I please. That is what I have, and now I put them at his disposal. Everything that he is, is put at my disposal. The greatness of God, the wisdom, the power, the glory of his might -- all is made available to me, when I make myself available to him.

This is the great secret of fellowship. This means that he makes available to me that which I desperately lack, wisdom and power, the ability to do. There are things I know I want to do, things I would like to do because it is his will, what he wants. But I can only do them as I make myself available to him, depending upon him to come through from his side, making himself available to me.

Then I discover that I can do what I want to do. That is what Paul says: "I can do all things, through Christ who strengthens me," {Phil 4:13}. But it is not only partnership, there is also friendship. Friendship and partnership together spell fellowship.

Have you ever thought of this, that God desires you to be his friend? What do you do with a friend? You tell him secrets. That is what friends are for. You tell them intimate things, secrets. And God wants to tell us secrets. Jesus said to his disciples, "I have not called you servants, but I have called you friends," {John 15:15}. He said this in a context in which he was attempting to impart to them the secrets of life.

Now God will do this, he wants to do it. This is what that wonderful word, fellowship, means. But it will be as you are able to bear these secrets. As you grow along with him you will discover that your eyes are continually being opened to things you never saw before. God will tell you secrets about yourself, about life, about others around you, about everything, imparting these to you because that is part of fellowship. That is what we are called to.

The fellowship is based upon the relationship. You cannot have the fellowship until you first come to Christ and receive him. When you have the Son you are related to the Father, and when you are related to him, you can have fellowship with him.

Then, when you have fellowship, you have the third thing that John mentions.

"These things we are writing," he says, "that your joy may be full."

I want to close on that note for that is where John closes his introduction, but I want to use a different term than joy. In some ways it is not as descriptive and accurate a term as joy, for joy is compounded of many things. Joy is an excellent word here, but perhaps it will be more helpful for us to understand what John means if we use the word, excitement.

"That your excitement may be complete."

Joy is a kind of quiet inner excitement and this is what results when we really experience the fellowship that John is talking about. When we discover that God is actually using us, it is the most exciting and joy-producing experience possible to men. Do not make the mistake of thinking that the only way to have joy is to be free from pressures or problems. No, take all the pressures and the problems, but with them that wonderful feeling down inside that God is at work, and he is at work in you. You are a vital part of God's program. God is using you to do his eternal work. There is nothing more exciting than that. That is what John is writing about. That is worth listening to, is it not?

Daily Devotional #2 (1 John 1:1-4)

Yesterday, we learned that there are three themes in 1 John 1, Relationship, fellowship and joy. Now, let us go back to the opening verses in 1 John 1 and see what the LORD has to say to us.

First, he is talking about having a relationship with Him.

1 John 1:1 reads, "We write you now about what has always existed, which we have heard, we have seen with our own eyes, we have looked at, and we have touched with our hands. We write to you about the Word that gives life."

It is evident he is talking about a person, whom, he says is "from the beginning." This is the same One of whom the Apostle John wrote in John 1:1-5.

1 In the beginning there was the Word. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was with God in the beginning. ³ All things were made by him, and nothing was made without him. ⁴ In him there was life, and that life was the light of all people. ⁵ The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overpowered it.

There are at least three "beginnings" in the Bible: The Bible opens with the phrases, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," {Gen 1:1}. That is the beginning of the material creation, of matter.

Now, in the Gospel of John there is another "beginning." That Gospel begins with these words, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," {John 1:1}. That beginning goes back before creation. That is the unbeginning beginning, the eternal beginning. Before there was anything at all, there was the Word. That Word was a Person, and he was with God, and he was God. That is the farthest point backward that we can go.

But now, in this letter, there is still a third beginning, "that which was from the beginning." Here John does not mean either the time of creation or the unbeginning beginning. Here we learn of the contemporary beginning. John uses this phrase many times. (2:7, 2:14, 2:24, 3:8, 3:11). This is what we might call the contemporary beginning. That simply means "the beginning I am experiencing right now."

John is really referring to the continuous experience of the Christian life, which is contemporary all the time. It has been available for all time, but you only began it when you came to know Jesus Christ. The disciples began it when they came to know him. It relates to him who is from the beginning. Now that is about as far as we can go in understanding that, for this is a timeless beginning that is right now, an eternal now. John warns all through this letter that we must cling only to that which is "from the beginning." If someone comes to you with something new, he says, don't believe it. It must be from the beginning.

Now he says this One from the beginning is a Person, and he has been seen and heard and handled. In other words, Christian faith rests upon great facts, the acts of a human being in history. Our Christian faith does not rest simply on ideas, or doctrinal statements. That is why becoming a Christian is not simply a matter of joining a church, or believing a certain creed, or signing a doctrinal statement. John points out that becoming a Christian is to be related to a Person. All of us are related to someone. We live in families. Why? Because they share the same life. And that is what makes a Christian, to share the life of God by relationship to a Person, the Lord Jesus Christ.

At the close of this letter John tells us, "Whoever has the Son has life, but whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life." (1 John 5:12). It is that simple. No matter how religious you may be, you do not have life if you do not have the Son. That which was from the beginning, he says, is a real Person. We looked at him, we heard him, we touched him, he actually appeared in history. He is an historical person. The forces which seek to overthrow the Christian faith try to undermine our confidence in the facts of Scripture, these great historical truths about a Person who appeared in time. That is why it is not at all unimportant that we should believe the story as it is recorded in the Gospels.

We must believe these facts. We cannot believe them merely as facts, ideas, or doctrinal statements. We must come down at last to factual acts of God in history. Now, that is where John begins. He tells us what he himself experienced and what we must experience, as well

Let me close with this. In the Gospel of John, John 20:29 to be exact, "Jesus told him,

'Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.'”  The disciples knew the Lord Jesus with their five senses and they believed. In John 20:29, the Lord Jesus is saying that you and I are more blessed than they. Why?, you ask? Because we see Him through the eyes of faith. And why is that so important?, you ask. Because seeing Him with the heart is much deeper than just merely seeing with our five senses which are limited to time and space.

Daily Devotional #1 (1 John)

When John was called to follow Jesus he was found mending his nets (Matthew 4:21). John’s written ministry comes in after the church has been in existence for several decades, at a time when apostasy had begun to creep in. In his writings, the Apostle John calls men back to truth. We begin to drift when some false concept creeps into our thinking or into our actions. It is John who is ordained of the Lord to call us back, to mend the nets and to set things straight.

Notice the first four verses.

1 We write you now about what has always existed, which we have heard, we have seen with our own eyes, we have looked at, and we have touched with our hands. We write to you about the Word that gives life. ² He who gives life was shown to us. We saw him and can give proof about it. And now we announce to you that he has life that continues forever. He was with God the Father and was shown to us. ³ We announce to you what we have seen and heard, because we want you also to have fellowship with us. Our fellowship is with God the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. ⁴ We write this to you so we may be full of joy.

Three things are highlighted for us in this introduction: relationship, fellowship, and joy.

John and Peter and Paul all had different ministries. It was Peter's task to talk about the kingdom of God. Paul's, about the church of God. John is concerned with the family of God. These are all the same thing, but they are viewed from three different aspects.

It is into the intimacy of the family circle that the Apostle John takes us. If you read through 1 John, you will find there are several reasons John gives for writing this letter:

In 1 John 1:4, he is first concerned about the joy of companionship which is, of course, the solution to the problem of loneliness. There is nothing more helpful in curing loneliness than a family circle. When you get lonely where do you want to go? Home, to the family! This is why John writes, "I write this that your joy may be full," answering the problem of  fear and loneliness.

Then in 1 John 2:1, he says, "I am writing this so that you may not sin." Here he is dealing with the problem of guilt. Again he says, "I write this to you about those who would deceive you." In other words he is writing to protect us from deception. Here is another great problem area of life: Where do we get answers? How do we know what is true? That is why this letter is written, that we might be free from deception.

Finally, in 1 John 5:13, he says, "I am writing this to assure you" -- that you might find security, freedom from failure. How do you find your way through life successfully? How do we know we are not going to fail? John says, "I write this in order that you might have assurance," be secure, free from failure.