Blog Archives - The Apologetics Blog

Following Jesus

2/28/2014

1 John 2:6 "The one who says he remains in Him should walk just as He walked."

We have seen it stressed several times in John's first epistle. Now we are seeing it stressed again. It is the importance of walking in the same way that Jesus walked. It is very important that we, as Christians, are truly living for Jesus.

John the apostle makes it clear here that we should walk as He walked if we stay in Christ. This means more than obeying the Ten Commandments. It means more than going to church. We are to love God with all of our hearts. This means that we cannot just give an outward show of godliness. We must stop going through the motions.

How do we know how to walk like Jesus walked? We study His life. We have four authentic accounts of the life of Jesus in the Gospels. What Jesus taught and what Jesus did are still relevant to us today, and allow us an opportunity to understand what to do when faced with any situation in life. The teachings of Jesus are still relevant today. We should study them. We should obey them. We should walk in the same way that He walked.

Obedience To God

2/26/2014

1 John 2:5a "But whoever keeps His word, truly in him the love of God is perfected."

We understand that our actions speak louder than our words. We know this, and John the apostle knew it. This is why he drew the comparison between the liar who claims to be a Christian, yet does not obey Christ, and the true Christian, who is obedient to Him.

In the previous verse, John told us about the liar. He claims to be a Christian. He may go to church. He may even read the Bible. However, when it comes to being obedient to Christ, he takes a leave of absence. He wants to talk the talk. He does not want to walk the walk. This time, John tells us about his opposite.

John now changes the subject to the person who is obedient to Christ. John the apostle makes it clear that the person who keeps His word has the love of God perfected within him. Obedience to God is more important than many of us have previously thought. It is essential.

Obedience towards God shows both our love for Him and His love for us. It shows our love for Him, since those of us who love Him will do our best to follow Him and keep His commands.

Obedience towards God also shows His love for us. When a non-believer looks at us from the outside, they see a transformed life in the person who is obedient to Christ. They can see someone who has been so impacted by the Gospel that their entire life took a change from a destructive path to a godly path. This may just lead to their being open to the Gospel message. If we obey Christ, we may see more souls in Heaven when we kneel at the throne. If we do not obey Christ, we are sure to see the opposite.

Our Actions And Our Words

2/26/2014

1 John 2:4 "The one who says, 'I have come to know Him,' yet doesn't keep His commands, is a liar, and the truth is not in him."

John's epistles are known for their references to love, both our love for God and God's love for us. John was not known for his exhortations to do good works in obedience to God. Yet we have run across another exhortation. That the apostle exhorts us to obedience to God in an epistle that mainly shares God's love for us tells us of the importance of heeding John's advice.

Our actions speak louder than our words. This is true of our daily lives, and it is true of our relationship with Christ. We can call ourselves a Christian all day long, but if we are not living in obedience to Christ, our words are empty. We can call ourselves trees, but if we do not have leaves and bark, our words only make us sound crazy.

John stressed this point in this verse. John makes it clear that a person who claims to be a Christian yet does not obey God's commands is a liar. In the very next sentence, John makes it clear that the love of God is perfected in the person who keeps God's commands. This person is not a liar.

There are only two alternatives for those who call themselves Christians. Either they can walk the way they want to walk and become a liar, or they can walk as Jesus walked and be truthful. We cannot walk the way we want to walk, yet reap all of the benefits of a God-focused life. It is simply not possible.

Are We Where We Were?

2/24/2014

1 John 2:3 "This is how we are sure that we have come to know Him: by keeping His commands."

John the apostle was stressing another point to the readers of his first epistle. He wanted everyone who read his epistle to understand that we can know that we have come to know God. He also wanted them to understand how we can know.

We can know that we have come to know God! Isn't this a great thing? Yes, it is. It is comforting to us whenever we come out knowing that we know God. It is not comforting when we come out on the other side.

John the apostle makes it clear that we know that we know God when we keep His commands. This may seem off the wall to some readers! However, this is what the text says. We must be obedient to God.

Is John preaching salvation by works? No, I do not believe that he is. After we have come to God through Christ, we can see that we have truly come to know Him when we keep His commands. In other words, salvation is not something that we earn. However, our salvation will have an outward appearance.

After we come to Christ, we will have a tendency to want to keep His commands rather than break them. At first, we are too weak to be able to accomplish much in this area. However, with God's grace and assistance, we are better able to keep His commands than we were when we first came to Him. It is at this time that we can look at where we are, and where we were, and see what God has done.

To The Children

2/24/2014

1 John 2:1a "My little children, I am writing you these things so that you may not sin."

Once again, we have landed back in the book of First John. In this short passage, John the apostle tells us who he is writing to, as well as why he is writing. These are both relevant and important to us today.

John makes it very clear that he is writing to a group of Christians that he views as little children. These were those who were not fully grown in their spiritual walk. They were not spiritual adults. John was writing to a group that still had some growing to do. I believe that this is precisely why he wrote to them.

John was writing this letter so that his readers may not sin. John wished that his readers would avoid sin at all cost. He was warning them, in a sense, of sin. He was telling them how to side-step it. He wanted them to stay away at all costs.

The fact that John wrote to spiritual children to help them avoid sin is very relevant to us today. Some of us would be willing to help a close friend or fellow church member with their problems. We would be willing to help them avoid sin. Are we willing to help those who are not mature in their walk? Are we willing to help those who have not been to church in months? Are we willing to go to the person who wants to know God, but doesn't know how? What about the person on the street, who just needs to hear the Gospel? Just as John's first epistle is a short letter with a large impact, so could our message be a short one with a large impact on the person who needs to hear it.

Contrast

2/22/2014

1 John 1:8-9 "If we say, 'We have no sin,' we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

John the apostle is good at drawing contrasts. In the first chapter of his first epistle, John has contrasted light with darkness, walking in light with walking in darkness, and lies with truth. Now, John is contrasting the consequence of not confessing our sins with the consequences of confessing our sins.

John makes the statement that if we do not confess our sins, we deceive ourselves. This is true! Human beings often try to justify their unjust actions in order to prevent the logical outcome of a confession to a holy God. Whenever we justify our actions, we are truly deceiving ourselves, and more than that. We are robbing ourselves of precious time with our Creator.

John also makes it clear that, when we justify our actions and deceive ourselves, the truth is not in us. When we justify our actions, we have become liars. This is a very bad place to be.

The contrast that John draws with this is one of confessing our sins. In order to confess our sins, we must first realize that we have sinned! We must also know Who to confess to! Once we have realized that we have sinned and know Who we can go to in order to confess our sins, we can come to Him and ask for forgiveness. However, there is more to this.

John makes it clear that, when we come to God and confess our sins, He is both faithful and righteous to forgive us of our sins. He is faithful to do this. He will not forget to forgive, or refuse a truly repentant heart. However, there is more to this.

God is not just faithful to forgive us for our sins. He is also faithful to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Not just some. Not just in part. He will not only forgive us. He will help us get rid of the problem. This being the case, there is no reason we should not trust Him to do so.

Light Vs. Darkness

2/21/2014

1 John 1:7 "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."

After he warns the Christians who receive his letter of the dangers of walking in darkness, John the apostle encourages the believers to walk in the light, just as God is in the light. This sharp contrast delivers a powerful message by showing us the difference between walking in darkness and walking in light.

While warning us to avoid darkness, John the apostle warned us that, if we claim to be in the light and are not living it, we are liars. Not only are we liars, but we do not truly have fellowship with God.

The promise of fellowship with others who walk in the light stands in sharp contrast to the consequence of walking in darkness, which keeps us from having fellowship with God. When we walk in the light, we gain so much more. Not only is it understood that we have fellowship with God if we walk in the light, but we also gain the fellowship of others who are walking in the light.

In addition, the promise of the forgiveness of sins stands in sharp contrast to the condemnation that comes from being a liar. If we claim to be followers of Christ, but don't live the lifestyle, we have become liars. However, those who do live the lifestyle are forgiven, not only of the sin of lying, but also from all other sin. We must strive to walk daily in a personal relationship with Christ Jesus. Are you?

The Routine

2/21/2014

1 John 1:6 "If we say, 'We have fellowship with Him,' yet we walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth."

We go to church. We may even go to Sunday School if we feel like waking up early. We listen to a Sunday School teacher teach. We listen to a good sermon. We shake the preacher's hand. We go home. Doesn't this describe the routine of many of us? Is this the way things should be? The answer is no.

We are not called to form a weekly routine. Our calling is to do more than this. We are to live a life of obedience to God in relationship with Christ Jesus. A relationship is more than a routine. Obedience is more than simply hearing the rules.

The apostle John reminds us that if we call ourselves Christians, and if we say that we are living the Christian life, we should back it up by a lifestyle. We cannot go to church on Sunday, and live like the devil for the rest of the week. When we do this, we are lying. We are lying to ourselves, to God, and to everyone around us.

So what can we do? Choose Jesus. Walk with Him daily. Obey God. Study His word. Above all, we must give Jesus first place in our lives. Only then will we come out of darkness and into the light. We will no longer be lying, but we will be telling the truth when we say that we have fellowship with Him.

Observing Light

2/19/2014

1 John 1:5b "God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in Him."

Let's take a minute to think about light and darkness for a moment. Have you ever stopped to think about what light does? It is fascinating.

Let's begin by defining terms. I think it would be fair to say that something is in light when darkness is absent. In other words, where light is present, darkness is absent. This is important to the analogy of God given by the apostle John in his first epistle. But what else do we know about light?

Light dispels darkness. Where light meets darkness, the light wins. The darkness goes away. I have never seen someone plug in a working lamp, put a brand new light bulb in it, and turn it on, and sit there in darkness. It does not happen. This is another point that we must observe.

What can we learn from these observations and the analogy that John the apostle gave us in his first epistle? We know that, just as darkness is absent where light is present, so where God is, sin is absent. Let me try to put it another way.

Just as light dispels darkness physically, so does God dispel darkness spiritually. Whenever God comes into our lives and we are living in a relationship with Him, sin gets expelled. This is no reason to say that we have not sinned, as we will see in a later devotional. However, this means that when Christ becomes part of our lives, our sins are forgiven.

Will we still struggle? Yes. We will fight to stay out of darkness for our entire life. What we do know, however, is that God's light will give us the strength we need to overcome the darkness. We cannot do it alone. We need His light in order to dispel the darkness in our lives. Without Him, it all falls apart.

God is Light

2/18/2014

1 John 1:5b "God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in Him."

Isn't it amazing how much we take light for granted until it is taken away? Think about it: Without light, we could not see. Without the light from the sun, we could not even live on this planet. Light shines in darkness to our benefit.

In his first epistle, John describes God as light with absolutely no darkness in Him. This is an interesting comparison, but one that is very true. Just as with light, God allows several things, to our benefit.

First, just as we could not see physically without light, so we cannot see spiritually without God. Those over whom God's light has shone can see our place in relation to Him. In other words, we can see that we need Him spiritually just as we need light physically. Without God's light in our lives, we will not be able to see where we are headed spiritually. We would have no sense of direction. Whenever we see this, we have an opportunity to turn to God, thank Him, and follow Him.

Second, just as we could not live on the planet earth without the light from the sun, so we could not live spiritually without the light from the Son. Without the Light Of The World, the world remains in darkness. Those of us who have turned to Christ have our spiritual lives illuminated daily by the Son of God, just as the sun illuminates our planet.

It is important, then, that we remember that God's light shines for our benefit, just as the physical sun gives light for our benefit. What is our appropriate response? First, we should thank Him for it. God did not have to send His Son. He freely chose to.

Second, we should make a change in our lives. If God's light has shown us that we have an issue in one area of our lives, we have a responsibility to do everything in our power to get rid of that issue. God did not shine His light in our lives for no reason. He expected a response to it. Everything that God does has a purpose.