WEDNESDAY April 12th
2 John 1:4
‘I rejoiced greatly to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as we were commanded by the Father.’
The final words in the previous verse, that is verse 3 were ‘in truth and love’ and John now immediately takes up the word ‘truth’ in our verse today, then as we will see in our next devotion he takes up the word love in the following verse.
What caught my attention was that if scholars are correct in suggesting that John was writing to a sister church and the congregation making up that church, that John ‘rejoiced greatly to find some of your children walking in the truth’. Notice he says ‘some’! This must mean that some of the congregation were not walking in the truth as they should have been. They would have still been a part of the congregation, but they were not walking as they should have been.
Now, however we may want to interpret this, it would seem that there were at least two types found within the congregation, we could put it this way, those who served God wholeheartedly and who having come to faith wanted to walk fully immersed in the truth and everything that is entailed in the working out of the truth in their lives and those who although a part of the congregation where not as whole hearted in their service and not as fully immersed into walking in the truth and of the working out of the truth in their lives.
I simply want to bring a challenge to all, as to how committed are we to walking in the truth, this means leaving everything behind that would hinder us or beset us in our Christian faith so that we live only for that which has value for eternity.
If the elder John, who wrote this letter was to come among us as a local congregation, and said that ‘I rejoiced greatly to find some of your children walking in the truth’, would we be able to identify ourselves as being in that group, or would we need to make some amendments to our priorities towards the things of God (notice in the verse these are the commands of the Father) and the fellowship of the church to enable us to be found in that group that were walking in truth. Do we need to make amendments, if so may God help us by the indwelling power of his Holy Spirit.