Day 2 - Week 20 - 1 John 5:12 "The one who has the Son has life. The one who doesn't have the Son of God does not have life."

OK - you may not have realized this, but with this verse we will have memorized 1 John 5:11-12 on the assurance of salvation and 1 John 5:14-15 on the gift of prayer, so we might as well add 1 John 5:13 and we'll have a full section of Scripture giving us a doseful of God's assurance for our lives. 

1 John 5:11-15

And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and that life is in His Son.  The one who has the Son has life.  The one who doesn't have the Son of God does not have life. (and here's the connecting verse...)  I write these things to to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life. (and now back to what we've already memorized...) Now this is the confidence we have before Him: whenever we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears whatever we ask, we know that we have what we have asked Him for.

There you go!  Not all that hard, is it?  And what a power-packed paragraph we've got stored in our hearts!  Does anything jump out at you from this section of Scripture...any subtle repetitions?  Seems to me that John wants us to know some things...

• that we know we have eternal life through Jesus Christ, God's Son
• that we know that God hears our requests
• and that we know that God will respond to our requests

So John wants us to know that we have a great hope for the future AND a God that is not only ours for eternity, but is with us here and now, listening to us and helping us through the life down here.  Isn't that such a great thing about our God as revealed through the Bible?  He's not only ours for a far off, long away time, but He's ours now, in our present struggles. 

This section from Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible phrases a summary of this section so eloquently...maybe because it is written in 18th century style, or maybe because the words just plunge into our hearts with their truth.  Please share this commentary with me and ponder on it for a bit, letting it really sink in...

Nothing can be more absurd than the conduct of those who doubt as to the truth of Christianity, while in the common affairs of life they do not hesitate to proceed on human testimony, and would deem any one out of his senses who declined to do so. The real Christian has seen his guilt and misery, and his need of such a Saviour. He has seen the suitableness of such a Saviour to all his spiritual wants and circumstances. He has found and felt the power of the word and doctrine of Christ, humbling, healing, quickening, and comforting his soul. He has a new disposition, and new delights, and is not the man that he formerly was. Yet he finds still a conflict with himself, with sin, with the flesh, the world, and wicked powers. But he finds such strength from faith in Christ, that he can overcome the world, and travel on towards a better. Such assurance has the gospel believer: he has a witness in himself, which puts the matter out of doubt with him, except in hours of darkness or conflict; but he cannot be argued out of his belief in the leading truths of the gospel. Here is what makes the unbeliever's sin so awful; the sin of unbelief. He gives God the lie; because he believes not the record that God gave of his Son. It is in vain for a man to plead that he believes the testimony of God in other things, while he rejects it in this. He that refuses to trust and honour Christ as the Son of God, who disdains to submit to his teaching as Prophet, to rely on his atonement and intercession as High Priest, or to obey him as King, is dead in sin, under condemnation; nor will any outward morality, learning, forms, notions, or confidences avail him.

You're either in or you're out---you're either on board or you're in the water---you're either a believer or a non-believer---you either have life, or you don't

---but you can. 

Don't miss it---get in----get on board---believe!