"...that if you confess with
your mouth the Lord Jesus
and believe in your heart
that God has raised Him
from the dead, you will be saved."
Romans 10:9
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Hello again! Let's begin with prayer....
"Heavenly Father, today as we look more at what salvation is for the Christian and how You abide in us if we confess that You are indeed the risen Christ, humble our hearts before You. Bring us to our knees in confession before You that we may be worthy of You. Thank You, Lord, for all that You have promised us. Thank You for abiding in Your children.
I seek forgiveness of my sins this day, Lord, and pray that You will wash me clean from my sins. I pray that You will cleanse me with Your blood and renew me. I long to hear from You and I know my sins separate me from You.
I lift up each lady reading this study. I pray that she will earnestly seek Your face today in every decision she makes. I pray that she will follow You and search Your word for guidance. Lift her up, Lord, give her strength to meet each new challenge she will face this week alone. Hear her prayers and give her peace.
In Jesus' name...amen."
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Seeing God Through Love
Last time we looked at how we can abide in God and He in us. We also touched on how the author of this book, John, was more than qualified to write each verse from experience. He truly walked with the Lord and witnessed all that He had done. He knew that God had sent the Son who is the Savior of the world.
Today we will look at what it means to be a Christian yet again. I was asked by an agnostic why God would allow all the different religions of the world to exist if He truly can be known. This man doesn't think God can be known by man. I quoted our verses to him because John wrote these verses that we may know and have that assurance that yes, we can know our Creator because He is a very personal God.
1 John 4:15-16
"Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him."
We have looked in the Old Testament how it was that God had communion with His people before Christ came: the Tabernacle and then the Temple.
One was a more temporary structure made for mobilization. The other was a more permanent structure made to remain or stay put.
Now the Lord God, Creator of the universe, abides within us. We are both mobile and permanent, to a point!
John desires for every Christian to understand this fact: God resides in us.
To you and me that may not seem like a big deal. But to the 1st century Jew, it was a huge concept to comprehend! They had lived with the stories of the Tabernacle and Solomon's temple. They lived in a region where Herod's temple stood firm in the distance. But here was John reiterating what he heard Christ say....the temple will be destroyed because there is no need for it any longer. God does not reside there anymore.
He resides in the Christian heart.
Try to picture the Jewish man or woman hearing this for the first time with the temple in the distance. This structure was several stories high made of white stone that glistened in the sunlight. It could hold 100,000 people and sometimes 1,000,000 were in it during the Passover feast. It was a magnificent feat of architecture for that day.
And John was saying that their God no longer had any use for that structure! Their God now lived within them.....if they confessed.
Please read:
Rom 10:8-10
Here Paul writes that believing in one's heart goes along with speaking with one's mouth. Openly confessing, or agreeing, that Jesus is the Son of God who was raised from the dead leads to salvation.
Luke 12:8
Rom 10:11-13
Joel 2:32
Here we see the promises of God that are eternal. "Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame."
My son often worries about believing in Jesus and then being made a fool if it all turns out to have been a myth. If Jesus never existed at all, then we will be put to shame.
But here God Himself assures us: whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.
John and Paul both want us to have that assurance that they did not suffer for a myth or a legend, but for the truth of which they were witnesses.
Praise God that we have that assurance.
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"And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him."
John returns to the message of love again in this distinct chapter. Remember, this section is about seeing God through love.
God's love is shown throughout scripture by how He constantly remains faithful to a people who constantly reject Him. He is revealed in scripture as one who seeks after sinners in spite of their rebellion or indifference.
Think about how He pursued you. Were you the rebellious one or the indifferent one? Yet He sought you and made you His.
Ex 34:5-9
This is the perfect picture of who God is: the one who will always be there no matter what we do to Him. He remains faithful to that covenant promise He made to us even when we are not faithful. That is love.
John reminds us that he knows and believes that love God has for His children. He saw it first hand through Christ.
He tells us that God is love....and that love is knowable. That love is personal. God wants us to abide in that love so we may abide in Him.
Being a Christian means trusting in Christ and acknowledging His lordship and authority over your life. I am often amazed at how many Christians live with no fear of God even though they have seen with their eyes how He alone spared them from so many hurts. Yet they still go and do their own thing!
I am blessed in that I have learned from the past mistakes I made. I fear God now more than ever because I have seen what He does in other believer's lives when they push Him aside. I have seen Christians get sicker and sicker because they refuse to repent of their sins even after they are told of their sins by other believers! I say, "no thanks!" to that because I have seen God move in my life when I refused to repent.
It hurts...it is very painful. And I do not want that separation from Him ever again.
God dwells in me and I in Him. That is more than I could ever want. I lived separated from Him for a time and it was miserable. I do not want that ever again.
What a great feeling it is having that assurance that God dwells in us. That, as Christians, we are under Christ's lordship and rule. We are not alone in this world.
Take time today to really meditate on these truths: You serve a faithful God who provided complete assurance that believing on Him will not leave you feeling foolish or shameful.
He provides you with complete assurance that He dwells within you and that He is faithful to His covenant promise.
Praise Him today.
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Life Application
Please read:
Deut 30:11-14
God gave us His words that we can keep for ourselves and treasure them forever. He reveals to us in His word is not "too mysterious for you, nor is it far off" so that we can not know all that He wants us to know about Him.
He says that His word is very near to us, in our mouths and in our hearts that we may do it.
How marvelous that we serve a God who is not far off. He is near to us. He is so very personal that He is in every part of our lives. Nothing is too small for Him to care about. He hears the prayers of those affected by the cyclone or earthquake as much as He hears you crying out about your personal issues and needs even before you say them!
What a loving God we serve. Take time out of your busy day to stop and listen for Him. Read His word and pray that He gives you a passion for it. Pray to Him and really thank Him for being that personal God involved in every aspect of your life.
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Until next time.....
"Christ condescends to take notice of beggars (Luke 16:22) and people of the most despised nations. In Christ Jesus there is neither "barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free (Col 3:11). He who is so high condescends to take a gracious notice of little children....Yea, which is more, His condescension is sufficient to take a gracious notice of the most unworthy, sinful creatures, those who have no good deservings and those who have infinite ill deservings."
-Jonathan Edwards 1703-1758 (Altogether Lovely, 1996, p. 20)
Blessings,
Ruth
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