WEDNESDAY 26th
It was on January 23rd that we started to look at John’s three letters, and for me it has meant looking in detail at each of the verses, as it has been with each of the books I have covered in the devotions thus far. The tough part is having to decide which verses to cover or which to leave out, for we know that it is all a part of the wonderful word of God which he has given to us. I am reminded of the points that Norman made when he talked about Ezra with junior church a week or so ago of how important the word of God was to them then and how important it should be to us today. His points were that we should learn from it, listen to it, love it, light the way by it and live by it. Maybe with Normans permission I will be able to do a few devotions on each of these pointers!
Back to John’s letters, I wonder if there has been any verse in particular that has sort of jumped out at you, after all we are reminded in Hebrews 4:12 ‘For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart’ and in 2 Timothy 3:16-17 ‘All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work’, therefore whenever we are presented with the word of God it should do something within us. It may simply be to encourage us, it may be to convict us, it may be to challenge us etc. but the end result is that we may be spiritually fed and trained in righteousness and will become complete in God.
I will highlight for the remainder of this week some of the verses that I have been blessed with from John’s letters, perhaps they will be a reminder to us all again of some of the wonderful truths we have maybe discovered or recovered, been encouraged or challenged by or simply just have caused us to be excited again of the fact that we serve the true and living God who has loved us with an everlasting love and who has proven it by sending his only Son into this world so that as we have come to believe in him, we have received eternal life.
So for today, I will mention 1 John 3:1-3 with a reminder that I use the ESV, ‘See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.’
Rejoice today that as you have come to receive the love of God through Jesus Christ you have become his child. This should really give us a boost of encouragement as we look around us and see the trouble, turmoil, strife, and recklessness that seems to be overcoming the world, that we are loved by God himself, we are his children and we are safe under his watchful eye and care.
As the King James Version puts verse 3, ‘Behold’ that is look, consider, ponder, meditate upon, ‘what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us’.
Behold, what love, what boundless love,
The Father hath bestowed
On sinners lost, that we should be
Now called the sons of God!
Behold, what manner of love!
What manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us,
That we, that we should be called,
Should be called the sons of God!
Robert Boswell