Category: 1 John

Reading

Audio, Visual

SAA Notes

John summarises everything he has said in the first four chapters in this last chapter. Meditate on verses 11 and 12. What idols do you have to keep yourself from?

SJA Notes

* Mighty God, Father in Heaven, please teach us today that we might know a little more of You and of how to please You.

“Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony of God that he has borne concerning his Son.”

There are many false religions throughout the world that seem different but all converge on this one point – They proclaim that Jesus cannot be God.

We however as God’s people are to stand firm in God’s word.

John knew the reality of Jesus. That He was God become Man, the SON to the FATHER, giver of the SPIRIT.

Here John points us to the truth – If you do not believe the testimony of God toward His Son (remember Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan river), then you make God to be a liar.

Unbelief comes in many forms, and can be tricky to nail down.

But God’s word is clear – Anyone who says Jesus is not God is not a believer in God.

God as He is revealed in the scriptures, the Old and the New Testaments.

One God. Three Persons (Father, Son and Spirit).

Let us be encouraged and exhorted in this today.

* God Above,

Please ground us each day in the truth of You, of who You are.

Please help us point people to Jesus, the Saviour of the world.

Please write Your word on our hearts this day. Teach us what You want us to know.

Amen.

Reading

Audio, Visual

SAA Notes

What verse in today’s reading do you think would be a good one to memorise. This is another famous chapter on love.

SJA Notes

* Lord God, thank You for Your love for us, even though we were unworthy. Please refine us today.

“In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

Here is the order of things.

Here is what true love looks like.

It is not from us, we don’t do God a favour by showing our love to Him.

Instead it is God’s favour to us that shows us what it means to love.

His love for us is so mighty, so deep, so full that one Person of the Trinity God would come down to live as a man and be crucified and take the punishment _and_ be the payment for our sins.

What a God this is, what a love He shows us!

* Loving Father,

Thank You for Your love, that we see so clearly in the work of Jesus on the cross.

God the Son taking on the punishment from God the Father that was justly meant for us.

Thank You for Your grace and Your mercy.

Thank You that in You we find life, and life to the full!

Amen.

Reading

Audio, Visual

SAA Notes

We are called to two things – to discontinue in sin and to love our brother Christian. 1 Corinthians 13, Zechariah 7:9,10 and 8:16,17, Leviticus 19:18 and much else of the case law in Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy will tell you what loving your brother means in practice.

SJA Notes

* Holy God, You are all we need in this life. As You write Your word upon our hearts, may our love for You grow ever onward.

“Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.”

This is a deep and chunky passage, full of hard truths.

John clearly points us again and again to the binary nature of sin and righteousness, of light and darkness, of God and of the devil.

And John exhorts us in a very practical exhortation.

“Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.”

How do we love?

We _do_.

And we do (act) out of our hearts.

Following Jesus is not a matter of the surface, of those things that are outward (words and discussion).

God’s people walk a narrow road, a path of walking and action, of decision-making through life, seeking God’s wisdom with each step.

We need to _do_.

Let us be encouraged to love in action out of the truth of the Spirit that lives within us, our hearts remade.

* Father God,

Thank You for Your love for us, that shows us how to love.

Thank You for Jesus, who showed us here on earth what it meant to love, to obey.

Please help us to love in action and in truth.

Amen.