Tag Archive | 1 John

1 John Chapter 4

Sep21

Happy Sunday y’all. Today we our continue our study of 1 John. We are now in chapter 4. This chapter reiterates a number of facts from chapter 3. It sorts of expands on some of things stated in chapter 3. Reminds us to be weary of false prophets, reminds us we belong to God (awesome:) ) , reminds us to love one another for God is love, reminds us we know we belong to God because we have His spirit living in us.

Holy Spirit we ask you open our eyes to see, our ears to hear and our hearts to percieve the truth in the word today. Without you we can’t understand what we are reading so we ask for your help. In Jesus Name. Amen.

I am still using  the SOAP method.  For those  jointing us for the 1st time see my welcome blog on the SOAP for more info.

S – Scriptures that stood out for me
1 John 4:4, 7 NLT

But you belong to God, my dear children. You have already won a victory over those people, because the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world. Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God.

1 John 4:11-12 MSG : My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other. No one has seen God, ever. But if we love one another, God dwells deeply within us, and his love becomes complete in us—perfect love!

1 John 4:17-18 MSG : God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love.

O – Observations
O1- Not all spirit comes from God..we have to test them to make sure what they are preaching tallies with Gods word. In a nutshell :), carefully weigh and examine what people tell you.
 
O2- For you to be able to test the spirits you have to know the word of God for yourself. Invest time in studying Gods word, you won’t regret it :).

O3- Emphasis again on the fact that we are of God and belong to him. Ain’t it mind blowing that the One who created it all and set everything in motion, the One who spoke and it came to being, the All Mighty, All Powerful, Ever Present God claims us as His own! Irrespective of our past present or future, today God is reminding us we are His and He is ours. So Be encouraged 🙂 God loves you that’s a FACT that can never change. Jer 31:3 says says I have loved you with an everlasting love…. (Excited much just thinking about this 🙂 )

O4 – We are already victors for Greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world. Hallelujah!!!! In chapter 3 we established the fact that as children if God we have His spirit in us and since we do, we know there Is nothing that comes our way that we can’t overcome for His spirit is far more powerful than anything this world can throw at us. Luke 1:37 CEVUS06 says
“Nothing is impossible for God!”

O5 – Again we are reminded in this chapter to love one another. In chapter 3, we discovered that love is not in words alone but in our actions. We need to love each other just as Christ loved us. If we don’t love others, then it shows that we don’t know the 1st thing about God for God himself is love. If we don’t love the people around us that we can see, how can we then say we love God? He showed us what real love is when He sent His son to die for us. V 9 -10 says “God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.”

O6 – As Christians we don’t have a choice but to love others because of how God loved us in that while we were still sinners he sent His son to die. Sounds so easy saying love others but if we are to be real with ourselves we know it could be very difficult especially when it comes to people we believe don’t deserve the love or people who have hurt us. This is where we need to remind ourselves that we didn’t deserve Gods love as well, we hurt him badly as well when we were still in the world doing the things that didn’t please him yet he chose to Love us not just in words but in action by sending Jesus so we can get back into relationship with him! We have no excuse for not loving anyone. The good news is we don’t have to do it on our own. God knew there will be times when it’s so difficult to love people and As the loving father that He is, He already made provision for those times by giving us his spirit to help us. We don’t have to struggle. We just need to ask the Holy Spirit for help and He will help us. John 14:26 reminds us that. Holyspirit is our helper.”But the Holy Spirit will come and help you, because the Father will send the Spirit to take my place. The Spirit will teach you everything and will remind you of what I said while I was with you”. John 14:26 CEVUS06

O7 – All who declare that Jesus is the son of God has Gods spirit living in them and they live in God

O8 – We need to embrace Gods love for us. It’s not enough for us to know that God loves us, we need to accept His love and walk in it.

O9 – When we walk in love we are walking with God as God is love. The more of God we know, the more our love walk becomes perfect.

O10 – When we are truly walking in love, Love dictates our actions it becomes the basis for everything we do.

O11 – We can’t love and be in fear….that’s not true love. Love and fear are opposites. Real love casts out fear. Brings you to a place of security and trust. God offers this kind of love freely to all. We don’t have to pay for it or work for it…all we need to do is acknowledge we are a sinner, confess our sins to him and believe and accept Jesus Christ as our saviour. It’s the best decision we will ever make :). (I made this decision at the age of 13 and I have not regretted it :), the journey hasn’t been smooth all the time but I can look back and say God has been faithful. I see him at work in my life and I am amazed 🙂 )

O12 – We are called to love because God loved us first!

A – Application

A1- Walk in love as Christ did

A2 – Pick some of the attributes of love as stated in 1 corinthians 13 and purposefully apply them to your life today

P- Prayer
Dear Lord we thank you for today and for the privilege to learn at your feet. We thank you for loving us enough to send Jesus to die for us. We ask for the grace to know you more, for the more of you we know, the more we are able to walk in love. Thank you for your Spirit that lives in us who is always ready to help us. We love you lord. In Jesus name. Amen.

Thanks for joining us today. It’s been another wonderful time in Gods word. I am always excited to read the word cos I never know what I will find. It’s full of too many hidden treasures.

Have a blessed Sunday y’all and remember God is love and we ought to love one another.

1 John Chapter 3

Sep20

Good Morning y’all. Today we are looking at 1John chapter 3.

I looooooovee this chapter so much 🙂 John starts out by reminding us that we are children of God. Then he moves on to say as children of God we cannot live in sin and lastly he tells us we are expected to walk in love- the kind of love Jesus came to show us.

Holy Spirit we ask you open our eyes to see, our ears to hear and our hearts to percieve the truth in the word today. Without you we can’t understand what we are reading so we ask for your help. In Jesus Name. Amen.

Here we go 🙂

S – scriptures that stood out for me

1 John‬ ‭3‬:‭9-10‬ MSG : People conceived and brought into life by God don’t make a practice of sin. How could they? God’s seed is deep within them, making them who they are. It’s not in the nature of the God-begotten to practice and parade sin. Here’s how you tell the difference between God’s children and the Devil’s children: The one who won’t practice righteous ways isn’t from God, nor is the one who won’t love brother or sister. A simple test.

1 John‬ ‭3‬:‭19-20‬ CEVUS06: When we love others, we know we belong to the truth, and we feel at ease in the presence of God. But even if we don’t feel at ease, God is greater than our feelings, and he knows everything.

1 John‬ ‭3‬:‭23-24‬ NLTAnd this is his commandment: We must believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as he commanded us. Those who obey God’s commandments remain in fellowship with him, and he with them. And we know he lives in us because the Spirit he gave us lives in us.

O – Obsevations
O1- God loves us very much that he made us His children. The world doesn’t recognise us because they don’t know or understand who God is.

O2- We know that when Christ returns we are going to be like him and will see him as he is. In the meantime we need to continue living a life of purity

O3- Anyone who sins is breaking Gods law for sin is contrary to Gods law. Jesus came to take away our sins. We fall into sin when we wander away from Jesus but if we are in close fellowship with him,we won’t fall into sin.

O4- Knowing and understanding the nature of God will also keep us away from sin for if we truly know God or understand him, we will realise he is a holy God who doesn’t like disobedience and everything he instructs us to do is for our own good and not for his benefit.

O5- Doing what is right shows we are righteous just as Christ is righteous. When we keep sinning it shows we belong to the devil who has been sinning since the beginning. Remember Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil.

O6- Gods children don’t make a practice of sin because Gods life is in them so they can’t keep sinning. We can’t keep sinning if you have him in us. He is the spirit of truth and always lets us know what we are about to do is wrong. Plus the more of him we know, the more sin becomes less pleasurable to us because we know it doesn’t make him happy. It’s like when you are in a relationship with someone you love deeply, once you know there is something you do that they don’t like, you stop doing it because you love them and you don’t want to hurt them. So it is with us and God. We are in a relationship with him and the more time we spend with him, the more we learn the things that pleases him and makes him happy. When we learn those things we make sure we  do them. He has even made it easier by giving us His Holyspirit to help us so we don’t have to struggle on our own. Wow what an awesome God!

O7- A person who hates is like a murderer. V15 says Anyone who doesn’t love is as good as dead. Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know very well that eternal life and murder don’t go together. (‭1 John‬ ‭3‬:‭15‬ MSG)

O8- Jesus is our example of love. He gave up his life for us so we too ought to be willing to love others sacrificialy. Our love should not be in words alone but in action. Love is a DOING word. If you see others in need and you can help, but choose to turn away then you are not practicing love and Gods love is definitely not in you. We should always be ready to help others even without expecting anything in return. By showing love the world will come to know the truth about God

O9- God is greater than our feelings and knows everything (Gives me so much hope to know that God is not limited by my feelings 🙂 ).

O10- We can come to God with bold confidence and will receive from him because we obey him and do things that please him

O11- We experience Gods deep and abiding presence in us by the spirit he gave us.

A – Application

Be obedient to God.
Stop practicing sin.
Show love to others even if we think they don’t deserve it .

P – Prayer
Dear Lord we thank you for today. Thank you for making us your children. Give us the grace to be obedient and stop living in sin. Thank you for the victory we already have in you. Help us walk in love today. Thank you for in Jesus Name we have prayed.

Thanks for joining us today. Pray you have been blessed.

Feel free to leave your thoughts 🙂

Have a wonderful Saturday. Remember, we are Gods children.