seekeroftruth
Well-Known Member
1 John 2:28 And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming.
29 If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him.
1 John 3:1 See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 3 All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.
4 Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. 5 But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. 6 No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.
7 Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. 8 The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. 9 No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God. 10 This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister.
These verses go to the next chapter so there are two links to the commentary this morning. Chapter 2 and Chapter 3.That we should be called children of God: The greatness of this love is shown in that by it, we are called children of God. As God looked down on lost humanity, He might have merely had a charitable compassion, a pity on our plight, both in this life and in eternity. With a mere pity, He might have set forth a plan of salvation where man could be saved from hell. But God went far beyond that, to call us the children of God.
It has not yet been revealed what we shall be: Though our present standing is plain, our future destiny is clouded. We don’t know in the kind of detail we would like to know what we will become in the world beyond. In this sense, we can’t even imagine what we will be like in glory.
Sin is lawlessness: John defines sin at its most basic root. It is a disregard for the law of God, which is inherently a disregard for the law Maker, God Himself.
Whoever abides in Him does not sin: John’s message is plain and consistent with the rest of the Scriptures. It tells us that a life style of habitual sin is inconsistent with a life of abiding in Jesus Christ. A true Christian can only be temporarily in a life style of sin.
Let no one deceive you: This tells us that John wrote against a deception threatening the Christians of his day.
Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him: The change from being of the devil to being children of God comes as we are born of God; when this happens, our old nature, patterned after the instinctive rebellion of Adam, dies — and we are given a new nature, patterned after the instinctive obedience of Jesus Christ.
Good morning, Brothers, Sisters and others. It's nice being adopted and waking up every morning wondering what is in store for me today. It's been cloudy and rainy in Arizona lately. A lot of the women in my community are wearing their dismal faces. It seems the older you get, the more you need sunlight. Sunlight's good for the attitude. The average age of the women in my community is 80. Yep, I'm a young chick here... lol. By now we've made a lot of decisions about the path our life has taken. There is an odd soup of religious beliefs in this community. We've got a Southern Baptist, some Mormons, some Jehovah's Witnesses, a few Catholics, some Methodists, a Gospel singer and preacher, and a couple of atheists. We used to have a lady who worshipped angels, but she moved on. I've noticed one thing that is pretty consistent with all of us. We don't talk about our faith much anymore. We used to have Bible Studies at the clubhouse. The local church used to send in a group once in a while to sing and preach for us. Since COVID the clubhouse is closed most of the time. None of us is showing our religion... but most of us show our faith.
We behave like good children. We're really quite lucky because our experiences have taught us things. On top of that, when you get old, sin really takes its toll. When you get old... you lose your lust. When you get old... the body can't tolerate a whole lot of boxing and MMA garbage. When you get old... It's not as likely you will smack your neighbor. When you get old... The body, physically, just can't handle a lot of sinning. AND if you get caught... when you're old... it's hard to escape the crime scene with a walker... lol. Some of us behave like good children because we are too old to put the effort into sinning! Our old bodies just won't move like they used to. Our guts can't handle a lot of booze and rich food. We have no choice but to be good.
My Online Bible titles this section "God's Children and Sin". We still sin. We don't mean to sin. We try to avoid it but we still sin.
I think the difference is, we strive not to sin. We're God's Kids... We know people are watching to see us fall. People are expecting us to sin. People are waiting so they can throw it in our face. Sinning takes a lot of effort. Sinning takes a toll. Most of the time... It's just not worth the effort or the problems it will cause. We're God's Kids... We know that behaving makes things go smoother.
We're God's Kids... everyone is watching.
