Day 3 - 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."

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.  I write these things to you who believe in name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.  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 we have what we have asked Him for.

Do you believe in the name of the Son of God?  Do you believe in Jesus?  If so, do you know that you have eternal life?  This is what John is telling us --- imploring to us --- so that we can life confidently in this life, living expectantly for the life to come.

How do you react when you hear dates prophesied for Christ's return as we recently have?  Do you, like most of us, say, "Well if someone is picking that day, then you can be pretty sure it won't be that day, because the Bible says, 'No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.' (Matthew 24:36)"  Then are you secretly just a bit glad that you've dismantled the prophetic statement so that you can feel comfortable in thinking that Christ's return isn't quite as imminent as some off-based prophet is announcing to the world?

Or do you possibly think, "Probably not that day, but the eternal life that I know is mine may be about to begin...the life that I have longed for could be very close...maybe this could be the dawning of that day!"

IF we know, as John so desperately wants us to know, that we have eternal life, no doubt about it, then we should be anxiously awaiting Christ's return...it should be the absolute desire of our heart.  The only thing that should cause us to request a delay is the opportunity to win more people over to Jesus so that they too can have eternal life...so that they too may believe in the name of the Son of God...Jesus, name above all names. 

For those of us who believe in the Son of God, we need to start living lives that reflect our knowledge of our future.  Confident, joyous, victorious lives that become so noticeable to others that they will not be able to walk away from us without asking, "What do you know that I don't?"  

And what do you know?  Oh...you know quite a lot, don't you?  Get ready to share!

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!

Tuesday=Review Day...after 19 weeks! We're going to do this thing!

Romans Road to Salvation
Romans 3:23  For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
Romans 6:23  For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord
Romans 5:8  But God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 10:9  If you confess with you mouth, 'Jesus is Lord' and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
Romans 12:1 Therefore, dear brothers, by the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your spiritual worship.

The Gift of Scripture
2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correction and for training in righteousness.
Joshua 1:8 This book of instruction must not depart from your mouth; you are to recite it day and night so that you may carefully observe everything written in it.  For then you will prosper and succeed in whatever you do.
Psalm 119:11 I have treasured your word in my heart so that I may not sin against You.
Deuteronomy 6:4-6  Listen O Israel: The Lord your God, the Lord is One.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength.  These words I am giving to you today are to be in your heart.
Deuteronmy 6:7  Repeat them to your children.  Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
Hebrews 4:12  The Word of God is living and effective and sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating as far as to divide soul, spirit, joints and marrow.  It is a judge of the ideas and thoughts of the heart.

The Gift of Prayer
Hebrews 4:16  Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us at the proper time.
1 John 5:14 Now this is the confidence we have before Him, whenever we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.
1 John 5:15 And if we know that He hears whatever we ask, we know that we have what we have asked Him for.

The Gift of Assurance
1 John 5:11 This is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.

Adding to our wonderful gift of assurance is the very next verse in 1 John 5, verse 12:

"The one who has the Son has life.  The one who doesn't have the Son of God does not have life."

Could it get any clearer than that?  Herbert Lockyer is quoted as saying:

The assurance of salvation is plainly written over the pages of the New Testement.  Christ and His apostles lived in the air of certainty.  The epistles glow with the truth that we may know we possess salvation.

I love the phrase he uses, "glow with the truth."  The apostles had such clarity of their future...they had no doubt about their destination, and they so wanted to make sure that they passed on that assurance to those who followed them.  John fills his gospel and his epistles with solid instruction as to how we, too, can be firmly convinced of our eternal destination...it is by being one with God through a saving relationship with Jesus Christ, His Son.

My goal is to be able to affirm as passionately as John does of my knowledge of my eternal home to any and all who may ask why I have this persistent smile on my face!  (And that means I gotta' keep smiling!)

 

Day 7 - Week 19 - 1 John 5:11 "And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son."

4th of July 2011 - what a gift we have been given as Americans!  We live in a country where freedom still rings --- and we pray that it will continue to be the land of the free and the brave for our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.  We cannot imagine the United States of America being anything less than what we have known it to be all of our lives --- the shining light of freedom to the world!

That's the gift we have as Americans...but as Christians we have been given a far greater gift.  It is the gift of eternal life.  This gift will continue past this earthly life of ours, and years into eternity the thought of where we spent our earthly years will probably seem fairly insignificant.  It's hard to imagine, but the dot of our eternal lives that we spend here on earth will be nothing in comparison to the infinite line of our lives that we will spend in our forever lives with God our Father.

I am so appreciate of the freedoms that I enjoy as an American, but I am much more appreciative of the freedom given to me by Jesus Christ my Savior...Luke 4:18 "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed."

No one who has been imprisoned would choose that life over a life of freedom---I choose my life of freedom in Christ over the life of imprisonment to sin.  This is the ultimate freedom that is not only for our lives now, but for our lives forever. 

God bless America!  God bless each of us and I'm praying especially for His blessings for those who are living in lands where freedom is not theirs to enjoy now, that they may know that God's  freedom IS available to them now and for eternity.

Day 4 - Week 19 - 1 John 5:11 "And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son."

We've talked about the wonderful gift that God has given us and that it is ours to take hold of right now...but how does that gift come to us?  The second half of the testimony explains the way that God presents this gift to us...the gift is in His Son.  Coincidentally (or was it?), just when I had written this statement the song, "The Coloring Song" by Petra played on the digital station I had the TV set on.  The lyrics express the gift of life given by God through Jesus so well...especially the first two verses shown below:

Red is the color of the blood that flowed

Down the face of Someone Who loved us so

He's the perfect man, He's the Lord's own son,

He's the Lamb of God, He's the only one

That can give us life, that can make us grow,

That can make the love between us flow.

Blue is the color of a heart so cold

That will not bend when the story's told

Of the love of God for a sinful race

Of the blood that flowed down Jesus face

That can give us life, that can make us grow

That can keep our hearts from growing cold.

The gift of eternal life can only be obtained when you accept that it is given through the blood of Jesus, shed for us, to bridge the gap between God's holiness and our sinfulness.  When you accept Jesus as your Savior, your heart that is so blue and cold becomes vital and warm and full of the lifeblood that only the Holy Spirit can bring to us.  We become alive in a spiritual sense...in a reborn sense...not born of mortality, but born to immortality, becoming children of the Eternal God, our Father.

John 3:3-5 " In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again. " "How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!" Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit."

Until we come to the saving knowledge and belief that Jesus came to reunite us with God our Father and accept the gift of eternal life through Jesus, and be reborn with the power of the Holy Spirit living within us, we cannot "enter" the kingdom of God.  The KJV uses the word "see" instead of enter...the Greek word is eida, and listen to some of the definitions:

to perceive with the eyes

to turn the eyes, the mind, the attention to anything

to have regard for one, cherish, pay attention to

to know, i.e. get knowledge of, understand, perceive

When you substitute those definitions into the passage, doesn't it give you a different perspective?  With these definitions, the verse doesn't carry with it so much the fact that we won't get entrance into the kingdom of God without spiritual rebirth (which we won't), but also that until we are reborn as true children of God, we can't even begin to understand, or have any regard for, the kingdom of God.  It has no value to us, we don't care about it, we don't look to it as our home and we don't hold it up as our longed-for goal.

I love this earthly life I have been given, but I also long for the day when I will truly be at home, my real home, with my very real Father.  I can see it. 

Day 3 - Week 19 - 1 John 5:11 "And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and that life is in His Son."

God has given us eternal life!

Has given....past tense...it is available to us now.  Eternal life is ours to take hold of now.  We don't have to wait until we leave this life to know that we have eternal life.  We can have that assurance now when we accept God's gift.

The gift has been presented...what do you do with the gift that is being held out for you?  Have you accepted this most wonderful gift?  If not, what is keeping you from doing so?  If you have, do you fully realize what you have been given?

According to Strong's Exhaustive Concordance:

Eternal life...aijwvnioß zwhv...ahee-o'-nee-os  dzo-ay'
Without end, never to cease, everlasting --- life real and genuine, a life active and vigorous, devoted to God, blessed, in the portion even in this world of those who put their trust in Christ, but after the resurrection to be consummated by new accessions (among them a more perfect body), and to last for ever.

This is what God is ready to give to all of us.  Eternal life that begins now and never ends.  I love the descriptive words Strong's uses...real, genuine, active, vigorous, devoted to God, blessed...who would turn down a life of that quality? 

There is life without God, and superficially it can seem like a good life.  But where is the center of that life?  The center of a godless life is self.  Some altruistic atheist might argue that statement, but I would counter that even the most giving non-believer does so to elevate self in some manner...whether it be in the regard of others, social status, or within their own ego.  Without a "god" motivation, the only reason to do good is to make yourself feel good.  And no matter how much good you do, deep down in the core of your being, you know you are not good.

When our lives become God-centered, we have a new life because God gives us eternal life --- a life that we know will have no end.  God shows us that our lives have eternal purpose and that everything we do now has a vitality to it that, apart from God, is not possible.  We are motivated to do good because we want to please our God who has given us this wonderful gift...His purposes are now our purposes.  We know that without Him guiding our lives, we have no goodness of our own; but we know that our lack of goodness has been replaced with His absolute and perfect goodness.  We are not futilely striving to do good independently, we are allowing God to do good through us. 

I hope some of this makes sense to someone else besides me!  As I write, I am amazed at what I am learning...this really is a new life we have been given.  Please don't miss this gift...a gift that starts now and continues throughout eternity!

Day 2 - Week 19 - 1 John 5:11 "And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and that life is in His Son."

Have you ever been asked to give your testimony?  People want to know how you came to a faith in Jesus Christ as your Savior, and it's an important thing to be able to share.  We each have our story how God reached out to us and we accepted His gift of salvation.  Some testimonies are very dramatic, some are not.  Some conversions happen quickly, some take a process of years.  But the important thing is, we have been saved through God's grace toward us.  And there is one common element:

God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son---this is THE testimony!

This is the good news that we are to share with all --- God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.

Isn't that simple?  Isn't that an easy sentence to remember and isn't this a great assurance given to us from God?

When someone asks you the difference in your life since you became a Christ follower, wouldn't it be easy to say..."Since I became a Christian, I have complete confidence of my eternal life.  God has given me eternal life, and this life is in His Son, Jesus Christ my Savior!"

So - how does that knowledge affect your life now?   In every way!  Everything we think, do, say should be affected by our knowledge that our thoughts, actions and words have eternal significance...that we can have an impact for eternity.  Doesn't that make you feel valuable?  It should - God intends it to.  When we realize that we have been given the absolute assurance of eternal life, we should get excited about joining with God in His work here on earth now.  We no longer have to worry about our own destination --- we have assurance of that.  Now we are free to change our focus from ourselves and become concerned about others.

Satan wants us to doubt...he wants us to question whether we truly are headed to eternity with God.  God doesn't want that for us. He wants us to know and He wants us to be freed by that knowledge.

And this is the testimony:  God has given us eternal life, and that life is in His Son! 

Hallelujah!!