WEDNESDAY 8th
1 John 2:3–6
‘And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.’
In this short section, John reminds us of the importance of keeping the commandments (commands NIV) or the words of Jesus. He says that the evidence of whether we have truly come to him is by the keeping of his commands. The result of this obedience is found in verse 5 ‘in him truly the love of God is perfected’.
God is love, he has demonstrated that love by sending his Son the Lord Jesus Christ into this world, and by faith we have responded to that love and as a result in coming to know Jesus we live in obedience to him.
John is probably recalling in his mind the words that Jesus spoke to the disciples in the few days leading up to his going to Calvary, first in John 14:15 ‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments’, secondly in the next chapter John 15:10 ‘If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.’
Love for Jesus leads to us obeying his commands (NIV) commandments (ESV) or his words which in turn leads to us abiding in his love and as we see also in John’s gospel it will be evidence in us as his disciples loving one another. John 15:12 ‘This is my commandment that you love one another’ and the measure to which we should love one another is in the next few words that Jesus spoke ‘as I have loved you’. What a challenge! We love one another in the same way that Jesus has loved us.
Now, if you remember back in the opening verses of John’s letter he talked about ‘our joy being complete’ (1 John 1:4), in John 15 after recalling and writing in his gospel what John heard Jesus say about loving one another, he also records this in verse 11, remember they are the words of Jesus, ‘These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full’.
Remember the chorus that goes, ‘If you want joy, real joy, wonderful joy, let Jesus come into your heart’, well if we want joy that is full and complete we need to yes, firstly let Jesus into our hearts, but afterwards we need to abide in him, we need to live by his commands and we need to love one another.