Month: April 2022

1 John 4:15 Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.

The promise of God dwelling in us and we dwelling in God is worth repeating. John had just written the same promise in v. 13. There we know the mutual indwelling because He gave us His Spirit; here it is in the context of confessing Jesus as Son of God. If you confess, then God dwells. To confess is to say out loud what you believe in the heart. A confession is a stated belief. We believe and confess that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, my Lord and my Savior.

It is really quite amazing to be aware that the Almighty Creator God is actually so present to me that He lives inside me, and that I am living in God. I don’t even know what that means, that I dwell in God. That truth has many implications and ramifications for my life. It is life-changing. It changes what I think about myself; it changes what I think, do, and decide; it changes my outward actions and behavior; it changes my attitude toward God, self, and others; it changes my outlook; it changes eternity.

“Practicing the Presence of God” is a wonderful exercise that the believer may engage in because he confesses Jesus is God and Lord. Being consciously aware that God is present in my life, that He is here with me and in me in the present moment, that He lives in me to bless and do good things, motivates me and empowers me to be kind and loving and do good works. I can talk to Him, whisper to Him, even think with Him any time and in any trouble. And He is there to deliver. All the promises of God are within reach of my heart and lips. God is so close!

1 John 4:13 Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.

We have a mutually indwelling relationship with God: He lives in us and we live in Him. This is glorious, even more glorious than we realize. The Almighty God of the universe deigns to want and to create an intimate relationship with each of His lowly creatures. Such a unity between Christ and the Christian is a mystery. It is hard to see and explain and understand. Nevertheless, we know that ”we dwell in Him and He in us.” We can visualize dwelling in a house, in a land, in a country, in the earth, but we can’t picture in our minds two living beings ”dwelling in” each other.

But we know. How do we know? We know because of this promise: He has given us His Spirit. God Himself shares His own Life with us. Though it is a past tense fact that has happened, it is still a promise to be believed in the present. The Holy Spirit has come to live in us, and also to teach us the Word, to guide us in all Truth, to direct our Path, to reveal God’s Love, to convict of sin and forgiveness, and to create Faith in Jesus Christ. By the power of the Spirit through the Word we know.

For our lives, it is as the little girl once said, ”If God is everywhere and God is in us, wouldn’t He stick out?” He will indeed.

1 John 4:12 No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.

No one has ever seen God in all His glory and beautiful brilliance. This fact leads many into doubt, disbelief, and rejection of God. But we can see the works of God in Creation, we can take note of the signs of God’s working in our lives, and we can be aware of the love of God as He is working it in and out of believers in the Christian community.

We love one another. This is the evidence of God’s presence and love among us. And this is the promise: God dwells in us, we love one another, and the love of God is perfected in us. Though we don’t always see these three things, we believe it because the Lord promised.

One, Jesus is always dwelling with us, whether we are aware of His presence or not. Two, He is loving each other through us in the fellowship of Christians. Three, the Spirit is perfecting God’s Love in us. This last promise may be the hardest to believe, for we see sin remaining in us and even abounding. However, it is important since it gives hope, joy, peace, self respect, self confidence, and self esteem. God is doing something in us.

1 John 4:10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, ams sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

The promise of God is that Jesus is the propitiation for our sins. Propitiation means appeasement necessitated by sin. It is a sacrifice that makes God pleased with us. It atones; it makes us ”at-one” with God. Sin separates; separation is death. When Adam sinned, and when we were born in sin, death is immediate for we are separated from God and His life, even at birth. We are born dead in sin, and God is displeased, aye, even angry, with us. We are deserving of God’s wrath and just judgment,

But although the Life of God was taken away from us, the Love of God was not. He still loved the human He created, but His wrath was against the sinner he became. His unquenchable love moved Him to come up with a rescue plan no human or devil could ever imagine: He would send His Son. The Son’s sacrifice unto death would propitiate the wrath of God upon us, and it would make Him pleased with us. In this propitiation we clearly see the Love of God and gratefully receive the Life of God. Because of Jesus we are reunited with God and connected to Him. And in Him is life.

In this promise verse the Lord gives a definition of love. It is this: Love is not that we loved God, but that He loved us. Love is of God and it comes from God. Love does not, and it cannot, originate from us. True, genuine, perfect, lasting love is God’s love for us. This is how we know: “God sent His Son….” The word love summarizes the Bible. The Law is summed up: ”Love God, love people.” We fail at this and it is sin. The Gospel is summed up: ”God so loved the world.” He did not fail and it is salvation.

1 John 4:9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.

With a promise similar to the familiar John 3:16, God shows how He loves us: He sent His only begotten Son into our world for this purpose: that we might live through Him. God is love; God loves each of us. He is not just love in a theoretical, abstract, propositional sense, but He convinces us of love in practical, real world, down to earth action. He sent, or He gave, His only son. How do I know God loves me? I look at the cross and there I see it. There He shows me clearly and brilliantly what Love looks like. It looks like sacrificing oneself, giving one’s life so another person will live better, and dying to self for the sake of another.

Love = Life. God loves so that we will live. Truly living is truly loving. We are really alive when we sacrificially give of ourselves (Love) for one another. God loves when He gives up His life (dies on the cross) so that we might live. God shares His life with us. The life of God that He graces us with is by definition eternal; it is completely without sin, evil, death, pain, or trouble of any kind. Or, it is without end. This life is joyous and completely perfect. This is living!

The problem that gets in the way of enjoying that life is that we still live in a corrupt world, full of devils, and we still have the Old Life, the sinful flesh with which we were born. Therefore, we daily repent and believe. We remember our baptism, in which the old man drowns and dies daily and the New Man arises to newness of life. This is living! This is God’s grace gift of Love and Life.

1 John 4:4 You are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

The promise for us believing children of God is that the One who is in us is greater than the one who is in the world. Therefore, we, who are of God, have overcome the Evil One, the Enemies, and the Antichrists in the world. ”The world lies in the evil one.” The spirit of antichrist has gone out into the world and fights against Christ, and God, against us, and against the Christian Gospel.

This spirit rules the world, its philosophy, its religion, its belief system, its morals, its principles, and its thought processes. The world tempts us to believe and live by its anti-Christ lies. But we have God in us, the Truth, the Gospel, and through Him we have overcome.

We face overwhelming and relentless attacks upon body and soul from the one who is in the world. But praise God, the One who has already been victorious lives and rules and wins in us. We take that gospel promise and apply it to the present presenting issue we are facing. And we overcome, for we believe the promise: greater is He that is in us.

1 John 3:24 And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us.

This is the promise: we will live in God and God will live in us. This mutual indwelling is a kind of mysterious unity as both God and I are in each other. It is not easy for us to imagine exactly how this works out in real life. Who is doing what? A simple answer is: if it’s a sin, I am doing it; if it’s a good work, the Spirit is doing it through us.

The Holy Spirit is working in us so ”under the radar” that we don’t don’t easily see what He has done; this invisibility is so blurred that we take credit for the good works we do. A good work is God’s work. For this reason it is called the fruit of the Spirit. Our proper response is to praise and thank Him always; this response helps us believe the indwelling promise.

How do we dwell in Him, and how do we know we are? We dwell, and we know we dwell by ”keeping his commandments.” The previous verse (v. 23) defines ”his commandment” as this: believe on the name of Jesus, and as a result you will love one another as the fruit of faith. Fruit is the outward evidence of inward faith. ”By their fruits you shall know them.” Jesus says, ”Abide in me and you will bear much fruit.”

This wonderful promise is based on “the Spirit which he has given us.” The Holy Spirit seldom gets the credit He deserves, but that is because He glorifies Jesus always.

1 John 3:22 And whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.

”Ask and you will receive.” The command to pray and the promise to receive what we ask of Him is given to us to embolden and encourage us to believe God answers our prayers. This is a bit of a touchy subject, for it appears in our experience that some of our prayers are not answered, at least not in the way and time that we wanted. But will we believe our experience or God’s promise?

The ”whatsoever” should mean anything, but it is limited to anything ”according to His will” as revealed in the Word. So we pray ”Thy will be done,” and it will be. We surrender to the will of God, for it is always good and gracious. The Lord says in James 4:2, ”ye have not, because ye ask not.” So ask! Yet He goes on to say in v. 3, ”Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.” Our own selfish will may conflict with God’s will. Therefore, we are in ongoing conversation with the Lord sorting out our two opposing wills.

In this promise, the condition is ”keeping his commandments and doing pleasing things.” We don’t keep His commandments, but Jesus kept them for us. So we pray by faith ”in Jesus’ name.” By repentance and faith in the gospel we keep His commandments and receive whatsoever we ask.

1 John 3:3 And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.

When we see Jesus face to face we will be like him, that is, we shall be pure, with holy love and righteous perfection. What a day that will be! Until then, God implants hope in the heart, the hope of seeing Jesus in His brilliant glory and becoming like Him.

We are not already pure, as we shall become, but we are in the process of becoming pure. It is not we who are making ourselves better people through the self-improvement efforts of the sinful flesh, for nothing can be done to improve the flesh except to crucify it. It is the hope in us that is doing the purifying. it is ”Jesus Christ in you, the hope of glory [Colossians 1:7].” Hope purifies. God promises hope and a purifying process while we are still alive on earth waiting for full revelation.

We are called upon to trust the indwelling Spirit through the Word of Gospel and the ”school of experience” to grow and develop us in the purifying process. He knows what He is doing, and He will do what is right and good for us. Just trust.

God loves a pure heart, and so do we. So He makes this promise, and won’t stop purifying until the goal is reached.

1 John 3:2 Behold, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.

Now, today, we are the sons of God, and we enjoy all the rights and privileges, protection and provision, safety and freedom, of being heirs. But we do not presently see, except by faith, what that is like and what that really means.

But we have this promise: when Jesus comes again in glory, we shall be like Him, for then we will see Him in brilliant glory, beautiful holiness, and overwhelming love. We will be so overcome by the sheer, clear love of God that such awesome love powerfully motivates us to be like Him when we behold Him face to face. The unstoppable, unquenchable, brilliant love gives us the strong desire and spiritual ability to be like Him. We can’t yet see how beautiful and glorious He is, but we will.

”To be like God” was the original temptation to Adam and Eve by the Satan. The problem is that we want to like God in absolute ability to do whatever we want whenever we want for our own selfish ends. But we do not want be like God in the desire and ability to totally love others, give, and sacrifice self for the good of others. That is being like God. And the amazing promise is that someday we will be like God in perfect love. Amazing!