May the mumbling commence!
After today, we will move on to reading the gospel according to John. Today, we will embrace the seventh day of First John and the fourth complete day of focusing on godly, agape love. Godly, agape love has great power to transform us. The agape love of God transforms us into children of God. Read from First John chapter three:
How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 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. (Verses 1-3)
God’s greatest expression of agape love was completed through the atoning work of Jesus Christ. Accept that love and be transformed. Be adopted into the family of God as children. What does it mean to be not only called the children of God but also to actually be the children of God? We do not fully know. That is what the author of First John tells us.
How do we seek a greater knowledge of what it means to be the children of God? We seek to know Jesus through the Scriptures. We seek to purify ourselves through the Word of God. It is a continuous process that never is finished. How else can we seek to know Christ? How else can we purify ourselves? It means extending our love for God to the love for God’s children. Read from First John chapter five:
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. (Verses 1-5)
Did you notice how this passage begins and ends with a statement of belief in Christ as the Son of God? That is the starting point of our agape love for the people around us. Love for God is shown be obeying his commands; and, as we have already seen this past week, God commands us to love one another.
Our belief in the agape love of God expressed through Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has the power to overcome any obstacle that Satan may place in our path. Let us overcome, with the grace of God, the barriers to truly love other people with agape love. Let us remove the barriers of jealousy, of entitlement, and of fear.
Perfect agape love drives our fear. Fear has to do with punishment. Fear has to do with the unknown. Perfect agape love eventually makes all things known. And when we know Jesus as he is, we have no reason to fear.
What a grand ideal to be called to godly, agape love! Let us start on that path together.
Today, we say goodbye to First John – for now. I look forward to coming back again later. There is so much more to learn from First John. We truly have only begun to scratch the surface of the wonderful teachings for eternal life in First John.
Enough mumbling for now…
Peace Out
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