Do You Love God’s Word and His People?

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. – 1 John 5:13

John wrote his three epistles so that you and I could know without a shadow of a doubt that we know Jesus, we understand the gospel, and we have a personal relationship with our Savior. If you read through first John, the author gives us seven questions to answer. These questions are not only meant to challenge us but also to give us confidence that we really do belong to Christ as His followers.

Over the next couple of days, we’re going to look closely at these seven questions. As we do, I want you to honestly answer each one and spend some dedicated time reflecting on where you are in your relationship with Jesus and where you have room to grow. So with that, let’s dive into the first three questions.

The first question is: Do you walk in the light? If you are comfortable walking in darkness and walking in sin, you will never have any confidence that you are a child of God. If you’re choosing to walk in darkness, then that means the outside of your life is not agreeing with what has happened on the inside of your life if you have truly given your life to Christ. On the other hand, if you have really met Christ, the inside will also look like the outside. The outside will look like the inside. When the outside and the inside are not looking the same, we can’t have confidence in our faith.

The second question is: Do you obey His Word? You will have the desire to obey God's Word when you have fallen in love with Jesus. You will want to align with Him because you know Him, and you will obey His Word because you actually have a relationship with Him. He wants us to align with all of His Word, not part of His Word. So often, we metaphorically tear pages out of the Bible if we don't like certain things it says. We want to redefine what is right and what is wrong based on what the culture says. But what we need to be doing is standing on the Word of God and aligning with the Word of God. We need to ask ourselves, are we seeking to please the world? Or are we seeking to obey the Word of Jesus Christ?

The third question is: Do you love fellow Christians? Have you ever been hurt deeply by someone who calls themself a believer? They said something or did something that hurt your feelings, and it was painful. The reality is that sheep bites get infected very quickly, and they can do a number on your spiritual life. Do you know why? Because you expect Christians to act like Christians. But remember, you are not the Holy Spirit. God will deal with the people who hurt you; you don't need to worry about them. Here is the crux of the matter: Do you love fellow Christians even when they don’t act lovingly toward you?

My prayer is that today you will take the time to think through your answers to the questions above, and then come back tomorrow as we look at the four other questions we can pull from first John.