Tag: 1 John

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Can a Person Love Jesus but Hate His Followers?

1 John 4

7Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8But anyone who does not love does not know God—for God is love.

9God showed how much he loved us by sending his only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. 10This is real love. It is not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.

11Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. 12No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love has been brought to full expression through us.

13And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us. 14Furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now testify that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15All who proclaim that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. 16We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in him.

God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. 17And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we are like Christ here in this world.

18Such love has no fear because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of judgment, and this shows that his love has not been perfected in us. 19We love each other as a result of his loving us first.

20If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a Christian brother or sister, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we have not seen? 21And God himself has commanded that we must love not only him but our Christian brothers and sisters, too. (1 John 4:7-21, NLT)

The Daily DAVEotional

“I love Jesus….I just don’t like His followers!”

Have you ever heard someone say something like this?

This sentiment, that Jesus is cool but his followers aren’t, has become widespread, especially among young adults (those classified as Millennials and Gen Z), who, according to Barna research, are leaving the church in record numbers.

What is going on?

There are a number of reasons why young people are leaving the church. According to Barna, some of the reasons include: seeing the church as too shallow, experiencing the church as being over-protective and fearful of everything outside the church, seeing the church as not being in touch with real-world problems, and viewing the church as being antagonistic toward science.

Whatever the reasons that might cause a person to step away from the church, is it legitimate to “love Jesus, but not His followers”?

Not according to John.

In my last post, I shared some thoughts from 1 John chapters 2 and 3, in which the author shared that one of the marks of the God-follower is love for one another, specifically, love for other Christians.

This issue of loving one another must be a big deal to John because in the next chapter, he once again exhorts his audience to love one another.

The reasons he gives in chapter 4 are as follows:

    • God is love
    • If we say that we are “in God”, then His love should be in us and it will be perfected (made complete) within us
    • Hence, those who say that God is in them should be loving because God IS love.

This line of reasoning lays the foundation for John’s final point, in which he states:

If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a Christian brother or sister, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we have not seen?

The bottom line is that one cannot claim to love God (or Jesus) but hate His followers. It’s an oxymoron because God IS love and therefore, if we love God, we will love His children (other believers).

Additionally, John points out, we’ve been commanded to love our Christian brothers and sisters.

So the idea that we can love God (or Jesus) but no love his followers doesn’t compute and reflects a fundamental lack of awareness of what the Christian life is all about.

We are living in perilous and confusing times. Unfortunately, churches aren’t always as reflective of Jesus as we might like. Sin has a way of ruining our expectations, unfortunately.

But the solution isn’t to bail on Christ’s church because it is filled with sinners who are a constant reminder of our need for Jesus in the first place.

As difficult as it may be, the solution is to find some other Christ followers and begin to live out the command to love one another in the context of an authentic community.

If this kind of community doesn’t exist then there is nothing stopping you from creating that kind of community.

One of the interesting arguments for the triune nature of God is the fact that He is a God of love and that His loving nature has been expressed for eternity in the context of a trinity of relationships. In other words, if the nature of the Godhead is singular, how would it be possible for love to be expressed as there would be no object for that love?

A similar line of reasoning could be expressed here. If a fundamental characteristic of the Christian life and knowing God is loving one another, how can that love be expressed in isolation?

It can’t.

Hence, the idea that one can love Jesus but hate His followers or one can love Jesus without being a part of a church community is not biblical. This issue is so important that John spends a major portion of his first epistle reinforcing this concept that Christians are to love one another….and that’s not possible if we are not in community with them.

Reflection

Do you know some people who claim to still be Christians but no longer are connected to a church? If so, what are the reasons given for why church is no longer a part of their Christian experience?

What response would you give to someone who says they love Jesus but they cannot be a part of His church because of all the hypocrites and scandals they see in the church?

How can the church address those who say that the church is either not concerned with or is not effective in dealing with real-world problems?

What steps can you (or a person you’re advising) take to be a part of the kind of community where the command to love one another can be freely expressed?

 

Original Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash (edited photo by Dave Lowe)

 

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How Can You Know if You’re Really a True Christian?

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

1 John 2

7Dear friends, I am not writing a new commandment, for it is an old one you have always had, right from the beginning. This commandment—to love one another—is the same message you heard before. 8Yet it is also new. This commandment is true in Christ and is true among you, because the darkness is disappearing and the true light is already shining.

9If anyone says, “I am living in the light,” but hates a Christian brother or sister, that person is still living in darkness. 10Anyone who loves other Christians is living in the light and does not cause anyone to stumble. 11Anyone who hates a Christian brother or sister is living and walking in darkness. Such a person is lost, having been blinded by the darkness.
(1 John 2:7-11, NLT – emphasis added)

1 John 3

11This is the message we have heard from the beginning: We should love one another. 12We must not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and killed his brother. And why did he kill him? Because Cain had been doing what was evil, and his brother had been doing what was right. 13So don’t be surprised, dear brothers and sisters, if the world hates you.

14If we love our Christian brothers and sisters, it proves that we have passed from death to eternal life. But a person who has no love is still dead. 15Anyone who hates another Christian is really a murderer at heart. And you know that murderers don’t have eternal life within them. 16We know what real love is because Christ gave up his life for us. And so we also ought to give up our lives for our Christian brothers and sisters. 17But if anyone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need and refuses to help—how can God’s love be in that person?

18Dear children, let us stop just saying we love each other; let us really show it by our actions. 19It is by our actions that we know we are living in the truth, so we will be confident when we stand before the Lord, 20even if our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
(1 John 3:11-20, NLT – emphasis added)

The Daily DAVEotional

How can you know for sure if you’re really a Christian?

Perhaps you’ve grown up going to church and you can’t ever remember a time when you weren’t a Christian. Or maybe you drifted away from God but have recently turned back to the Lord and you’re wondering if God still accepts you.

John’s short letter of 1 John is packed with a number of “identifying markers” that are good indicators that you are indeed “in the faith.”

In 1 John chapters 2 and 3, John gives another of his litmus tests that are designed to give his audience confidence that they truly are a part of God’s family.

In this particular passage, John says that the proof “that we have passed from death to eternal life” is our love for other Christians.

John’s argument can be summarized as follows:

    • We’ve been given a new command to love one another
    • This command to love is based on the example of Jesus, who demonstrated his love by dying for us
    • Jesus is light and in him there is no darkness, so living for Jesus is “living in the light”
    • Since Jesus died for us (all of us), it means he loves us (all of us). Therefore, to be living in the light of Jesus means we should love people as Jesus loves

The real litmus test then is how do you think and feel about other Christians? Do you love them as Jesus loves them? John says that those who say they love God but hate their Christian brother or sister is “living and walking in darkness.”

Darkness is always used by John in reference to sin or disconnected fellowship with God. Hence, the person who says they love God but hates their fellow Christian, for whatever reason, is not connected to God.

John takes the illustration even further when he says that “Anyone who hates another Christian is really a murderer at heart.” OUCH!

So one of the identifying markers of a true follower of Christ is their love of other Christians.

Yes, I know! Some “other” Christians are not easy to love. Perhaps they share different political views than you or they’re involved in activities of which you don’t approve. Maybe they just have an annoying personality that rubs you the wrong way.

Regardless, John’s logic is irrefutable: Jesus loved us all, which is amazing because we were not very lovable. In fact, Jesus loved us in spite of the fact that our sin made us his enemies.

Since Jesus is able to love “the unloveable”, we should be able to as well, since we have His Holy Spirit living within us.

Therefore, we should demonstrate love to everyone, even those whom we might consider “difficult to love”, for whatever reason.

Our ability to love other Christians is an evidence of God’s work in our life and provides strong evidence that you really are a part of God’s eternal family!

Reflection

If someone were to come to you with doubts about whether or not they were genuinely a Christian, what would you tell them? How would you go about helping them to affirm their place in God’s family?

John specifically talks about our need to love other Christians. Why do you think he emphasizes the need to love other believers but doesn’t mention non-believers?

Some people are easier to love than others. What are some possible reasons why you might be challenged to demonstrate “love to some people?

John urges us to “really show it [our love for others] by our actions.” What actions show love to you? What are some actions you could begin to implement in your spheres as a means of demonstrating love toward other believers?

Suppose someone says to you, “I love Jesus, I just can’t stand his followers.” What would you say to this person? Do you think this person can be a Christian? Why or why not?

 

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

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Is Your View of Jesus Really that Important? (Part 2)

1 John 5

1Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. 2This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. 3This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, 4for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. 5Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.

6This is the one who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. 7For there are three that testify: 8the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. 9We accept man’s testimony, but God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son. 10Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart. Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his Son. (1 John 5:1-10, NIV)

The Daily DAVEotional

There’s a confusing passage of scripture in 1 John 5 that quite frankly, I’ve been in the habit of skimming over for years because I never really understood it and I didn’t have the patience, determination or even knowledge to know how to go about determining its true meaning.

I’m talking about this passage in 1 John 5:7, 8 which states that “there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.”

I couldn’t even begin to explain what that really meant, largely because I didn’t have a firm grasp on the larger context of the letter. But once you understand why John is writing his letter and what the background is, the meaning of this passage becomes more clear.

If you read my previous post regarding 1 John 4:1-6, you’ll know that one of the main reasons John wrote this letter was to address and refute a false teaching about Jesus that was circulating within the church.

This false teaching asserted that Jesus was just a man and “the Christ” was a spiritual entity who entered into the body of Jesus at His baptism and left just before Jesus was crucified. Hence, Jesus and the Christ were separate individuals, not the same person. John opposed this teaching so strongly that he not only labeled the teachers as “false prophets” but he referred to the teaching itself as “deception” and even “antichrist.”

It’s interesting to look at this passage from 1 John 5 and see that right off the bat in verse 1, John says that “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.”

Notice that John affirms that Jesus IS the Christ. They are one and the same person. Humanity and divinity together, at the same time in the same person. John states that belief in this specific doctrine, that Jesus is human and divine at the same time, is essential to being “born of God.” (verse 1)

In verse 5, John once again affirms the divinity of Jesus as he states that the one “who believes Jesus is the Son of God” is the one who overcomes. Referencing Jesus as the “Son of God” is an affirmation of His divine nature.

But then we come upon the sticky passage, the one that’s talking about water and blood and the spirit and testimonies and witnesses, etc.

What’s he talking about here and how does this relate to anything he’s been saying?

As I mentioned before, these false teachers were teaching that “the Christ” descended upon Jesus (the man) at his baptism and left him just before the crucifixion. Hence, they were teaching that the person who was crucified was NOT the Son of God, but just the normal human Jesus.

John’s reference to water, blood and the spirit makes sense when you understand how he’s trying to combat the view of Jesus that was being promoted.

Do you remember what happened at Jesus’ baptism in Matthew 3? I wrote about this in a previous post here.

Jesus was baptized with water by John the Baptist. Immediately after coming up out of the water, the Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove, descends upon Jesus and God the Father audibly affirms that Jesus is His Son, in whom He is well-pleased.

So the water in this passage of 1 John 5 is a reference to Jesus’ baptism, which happens to be the point the false teachers said “the Christ” overtook the human Jesus’ body.

The blood is a reference to Jesus’ crucifixion, which marked the end of Jesus’ public ministry.

The Spirit is a reference to the Holy Spirit, who affirmed Jesus’ identity at His baptism.

By referencing water, the blood and the Spirit, John is directly refuting the false teachers by establishing that Jesus was the Son of God before His baptism AND at His death.

So John is saying that there are 3 witnesses that are all in agreement concerning the identity of Jesus. There is the water when Jesus was baptized and affirmed to be the Son of God, and there was the blood when Jesus was crucified and also affirmed to be the Son of God.

John continues by arguing that the law typically required 2 or 3 human witnesses to establish a fact. Since God is greater than humans, and He has given us 3 witnesses, or facts that establish the identify of Jesus as “the Christ”, and “the Son of God”, how much more should we believe Him?

John concludes by saying that if you do NOT believe that Jesus is the Son of God, you are making God out to be a liar because He has already provided evidence (testimony) to demonstrate this truth about the nature of Jesus.

Understanding and believing these truths is critically important because if Jesus was just a man when he was crucified, as the false teachers asserted, how could his death atone for the sins of the world? It couldn’t.

Good Friday would not be so good. It would be Bad Friday, or at best, Normal Friday because Jesus’ death would have accomplished nothing and it would have been so insignificant that we would probably not even be aware of it 2000 years later!

NOTE: Have you ever wondered what makes Good Friday good? I wrote about this in a previous post and you can read about it here.

Reflection

What do you think the term “Son of God” means? What does it communicate about the nature of Jesus?

If Jesus wasn’t God, how would that impact His mission to save the world from sin? How would you explain to someone why it is critically important for Jesus to be God if we are to have any hope of our sin actually being paid for?

Do you agree with the author John who says that in order to be “born of God” you must believe that Jesus is the Christ? Why or why not? What do you think it means that Jesus is the Christ?

What modern day examples come to mind that demonstrate a false teaching or understanding of the nature of Jesus?

 

Photo by Yannick Pulver on Unsplash

 

 

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Does Your Understanding Of the Nature of Jesus Really Matter?

1 John 4

1Dear friends, do not believe everyone who claims to speak by the Spirit. You must test them to see if the spirit they have comes from God. For there are many false prophets in the world. 2This is the way to find out if they have the Spirit of God: If a prophet acknowledges that Jesus Christ became a human being, that person has the Spirit of God. 3If a prophet does not acknowledge Jesus, that person is not from God. Such a person has the spirit of the Antichrist. You have heard that he is going to come into the world, and he is already here.

4But you belong to God, my dear children. You have already won your fight with these false prophets, because the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world. 5These people belong to this world, so they speak from the world’s viewpoint, and the world listens to them. 6But we belong to God; that is why those who know God listen to us. If they do not belong to God, they do not listen to us. That is how we know if someone has the Spirit of truth or the spirit of deception. (1 John 4:1-6, NLT)

The Daily DAVEotional

Does your theological understanding of Jesus really matter? Isn’t it enough to just believe that Jesus saves us?

With so many different religions and world views giving us countless versions and understandings of Jesus, perhaps you’ve heard this line of reasoning before.

If you read the New Testament, you’ll find that many of the letters addressed variant teachings regarding the person of Jesus. 1 John is one of those letters that deals with a teaching regarding the nature of Jesus that John refers to as “deception.” In this passage, John gives a litmus test to his readers to know whether a religious teacher is actually from God or whether they are a false teacher. John’s test involves examining the religious teacher’s view of Jesus against what he and the other apostles had taught.

The false teaching that was being floated around at the time was a concept that has come to be known as Docetism. That’s a big word but it basically means “to seem”. The idea was that the person we think of when we talk about Jesus was not a “normal” human being, at least not as we would normally think about it. Jesus “seemed” to be a person of flesh, but he really wasn’t.

This particular view said that Jesus and Christ were not the same person, but two different beings. Jesus was a normal human and Christ was the spiritual entity who was sent from above.

At Jesus’ baptism, the spiritual being known as “Christ” descended upon Jesus and occupied His physical body up until the point when Jesus was crucified. Hence, all the miracles and teachings were attributed to “Christ”, not Jesus.

So when you see all the miracles being done by this religious wise man, you can’t say that it was Jesus doing them. It was really “the Christ”, who was in control of the physical body of Jesus. Whereas traditional teaching on the nature of Christ taught that Jesus had a dual nature, being both divine and human, this teaching denied the humanity of Jesus. John staunchly refutes this view, even going so far as to calling it “antichrist”.

John counters this teaching in many ways throughout his letter but in this passage, he states that if a “prophet acknowledges that Jesus Christ became a human being, that person has the Spirit of God.”

Notice in verse 2 that John considers Jesus Christ to be one person. He doesn’t separate Jesus and Christ into two separate beings as the false teachers did. John’s view is that Jesus was divine and he became flesh. Therefore, the view that John and the other apostles taught concerning Jesus is that he was both divine and human at the same time.

In the beginning the Word already existed. He was with God, and he was God … So the Word became human and lived here on earth among us.  (John 1:1, 14)

John then says that if a prophet does not acknowledge Jesus, that person is not from God. To acknowledge Jesus means that all of the miracles and teachings in the gospels are attributed to the person of Jesus who is the Christ (the anointed one). Remember, these false teachers attributed all of the miracles and great works to “the Christ” but not the person of Jesus, whom they viewed as a sort of bodily shell that the spiritual being known as “Christ” was occupying.

In short, this invasion of the body snatchers scenario, where Jesus’ body was invaded and occupied by some supernatural spiritual being known as “Christ”, was utterly false according to John.

According to John, denying Jesus’ humanity would put you in a category of false teacher and even “antichrist”. Similarly, denying the deity of Christ would be equally egregious in terms of contradicting the apostles’ clear teaching. Therefore, denying that Jesus was divine would also be false, deceptive and “antichrist.”

Hence, according to John and the other apostles, your understanding and view of the nature and person of Jesus is vitally important, regardless of what others might say today.

If you still doubt that our understanding of Jesus’ nature is crucial, remember that Jesus himself asked His disciples the all important question of “Who do you say that I am?” I wrote here about how it was important to Jesus that His followers understand His true identity and nature. He is not just a prophet or a good moral teacher. He is the Christ, the Messiah. He is God in the flesh, the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!

Reflection

What has been your understanding concerning the nature of Jesus?

Why do you think the New Testament authors spent so much time refuting these variant views of the nature of Jesus?

What would you say to someone who said that it doesn’t matter what you believe about Jesus’ nature, the important thing is to believe that only Jesus can save? 

Jesus asks the most important question of those who would follow Him when he asks, “Who do you say that I am?” How would you answer that question?

 

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Walking in the Light Simplified

1 John 1

5This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. 7But 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, purifies us from all sin.

8If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.
(1 John 1:5-10, NIV)

The Daily DAVEotional

The letter of 1 John contains the familiar light/darkness motif that John is known for in his gospel, in which the word “light” shows up 24 times.

John uses the idea of light to depict moral purity and absolute righteousness, whereas darkness refers to sin or unrighteousness.

In this passage, John declares that “God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all”, signifying that God is completely righteous and without sin.

John then proceeds to give some qualifications for how we, as believers, can experience fellowship with God. Here are some of the highlights:

    • Verse 6 says that we cannot experience fellowship with God if we are walking in the darkness. But what does that mean? Well, if darkness refers to sin and unrighteousness, then walking in the darkness must mean that we are walking in unrighteousness.
    • Verse 7 says that if we walk in the light then we WILL experience fellowship with one another and our sin will be purified by the blood of Jesus.
    • In verse 8, John tells us that anyone who claims to be without sin is deceiving themselves.
    • In verse 9, John tells us that if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all sin.
    • Finally, verse 10 tells us that anyone who claims that they haven’t sinned is making God out to be a liar!

So what do these verses really tell us? It seems that if we want to experience fellowship with God then we cannot walk in unrighteousness, which one might conclude means that we cannot sin.

Yet verses 8 and 10 tell us that anyone who claims to be without sin is deceiving themselves and calling God a liar.

So if fellowship with God requires sinlessness, we are in trouble, because sinlessness is an impossible standard and John himself has said that we can’t claim to be without sin without deceiving ourselves and making God out to be a liar.

So what is really going on here?

To answer this question, I want to appeal to a mathematical law known as syllogism.

The law of syllogism demonstrates the relationship between multiple statements.

For example, if “a” leads to “b” and “b” leads to “c”, then it logically follows that “a” leads to “c”.

Stay with me here because this isn’t as complicated as it may appear. Here is how this relates to this passage. Look particularly at verses 7 & 9.

In verse 7, John says that (A) “walking in the light” leads to “fellowship with God” and (C) “our sin being purified by the blood of Jesus.”

In verse 9, John says that (B) “confessing our sin” leads to “God forgiving our sins” and (C) “purifying us from all unrighteousness.”

Notice that in both verse 7 and verse 9 there are two different actions (A & B) that both lead to the same result: being purified of our sin/unrighteousness. Here it is in simplified form:

    • (A) “walking in the light” leads to (C) “our sin being purified by the blood of Jesus.”
    • (B) “confessing our sin” leads to (C) “being purified from all unrighteousness.”

What does this tell us? It tells us that there is a relationship between “walking in the light” and “confessing our sins” since both lead to “our sin/unrighteousness being purified.”

So, do you want to experience fellowship with God? John says you have to walk in the light. But what does that mean? Fortunately, the law of syllogism helps us by helping us see how John defined what it means to walk in the light. It means that we are in the habit of confessing our sins and experiencing God’s forgiveness.

Walking in the light does not require some kind of sinless perfection, as John has established that everyone sins and we can’t say that we haven’t sinned.

Walking in the darkness means that when I do sin, I fail to confess it. As a result, I begin to live in rebellion towards God and I cease to experience daily forgiveness for my sins and shortcomings. The result of this is a lack of growth, as I wrote in my recent blog post “Why Some Christians Never Grow“.

Walking in the light simply means that when I do sin, I submit myself to God’s authority and I confess my sin. Confession involves agreeing with God regarding His moral standards. It also involves repentance, which is a posture of humility and openness to God.

The benefits of this simple habit of confession are enormous. We experience daily cleansing from our sins and we continue to experience fellowship with God and with other believers!

Reflection

What has been your understanding of the concept of “walking in the light”? How would you have described it to another person?

How important has the habit of confession been in your own spiritual journey? What makes it hard for you to confess your sins regularly?

What do you think are the connections between lack of confession and walking in unrighteousness? What are some of the reasons or factors that make it tempting for you and other believers to walk in the darkness instead of walking in the light?

John says in verse 6 that some people claim to have fellowship with God but they’re actually walking in the darkness. What do you think characterizes the lifestyle of this person? What does it look like to walk in darkness but claim to be in fellowship with God?

 

Photo by Jackson David on Unsplash