The Lord is awe-inspiring, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him in 1 John 5:13,
“I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.”
I hold to a conviction that what we read in Scripture is what God wants us to know. As Paul points out in 2 Timothy 3:16, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” I believe it is God communicating to us through the differing individuals who penned the Scriptures. As Peter says, “Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” 2 Peter 1:20-21.
Given that as a deeply held belief, when John says “I write these things to you… so that you may know you have eternal life”, I understand it is God himself who wants us to know we have eternal life. By my count, in at least 26 passages in this short five-chapter letter we read of how we can know we are saved. It is the same criteria John provides to know who false teachers are as well.
My thoughts this morning center on how our loving heavenly Father seeks to help us in our weaknesses. Although he has provided his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins and enabled us through one way or another to get the message of this atonement applied to us through our embracing him in faith, we still struggle with doubts and uncertainties at times. Our God has done all the heavy lifting, all we need do is grasp it by faith and yet we still struggle at times. God knows this and rather than just shaking his head and rolling his eyes (which to me would seem appropriate), in love he continues to encourage us with the words of this wonderful letter. We can know we are saved… our God has told us how we can know in this letter in a number of ways.
It is just like our God to care for us in this way…
Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share your theme of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We’d love to hear from you!
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