{"id":13519,"date":"2024-08-13T09:05:13","date_gmt":"2024-08-13T15:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theclarion.org\/?p=13519"},"modified":"2024-08-13T09:05:13","modified_gmt":"2024-08-13T15:05:13","slug":"thoughts-from-the-bible-179","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/?p=13519","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts from The Bible"},"content":{"rendered":"

That We May Know Him<\/strong>
\nby Sarah Wootten Corinth Missionary Baptist Church<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols,\u201d (1 John 5:20-21, ESV).
\nAfter nine months in the letter of 1 John, we have finally come full circle. We end this journey with a reminder of why John wrote the letter in the first place \u2013 so that we may have assurance of the salvation that is only found in God\u2019s Son, Jesus Christ. Every time we\u2019ve talked about the necessity of obedience, loving God, loving others, the lies that surround us, and the truth of the gospel, it\u2019s been, in large part, so that we would prayerfully examine our lives and know if we truly have been given eternal life in Him.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a truth in these last two verses that I don\u2019t want us to miss. It\u2019s the fact that all of salvation is based upon God\u2019s grace. Look at the first sentence in 1 John 5:20. Where does our comprehension of the gospel come from? Certainly, it\u2019s not from within ourselves. All unbelievers have a darkened understanding (Ephesians 4:17-18). And if understanding does not come from within ourselves, then it has to come from without. Jesus, the Son of God, came to give us understanding of the truth so that we may be found in Him who is true and be given eternal life. Even our understanding of the gospel is a marvelous gift of God\u2019s grace! Our salvation from the beginning and through all of eternity is of God\u2019s grace.<\/p>\n

As you read through 1 John these past several months, you may have thought at times that John is calling us to good works in order to earn salvation. I\u2019ll be the first to admit that some of John\u2019s sentences taken out of context do make me raise an eyebrow. But that\u2019s not the message of 1 John. John has always been about explaining the evidence that someone has truly come to know Christ. It\u2019s impossible to experience God\u2019s saving grace, and your life not be changed. Jesus described salvation as a new birth, and Paul said that people become new creations. You can\u2019t undergo that type of experience and remain unchanged. That is why John can confidently write, \u201cAnyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love,\u201d (1 John 4:8, ESV).<\/p>\n

Some believers may read that verse and tremble because you are reminded of all the ways you have failed to love those around you this week. I get it, and so did John. I\u2019m convinced that that\u2019s why he reminds us of repentance and the forgiveness found in Christ at the beginning of this letter and why he spends so much time intertwining glorious truths with exhortations to obey. For example, John could have said in 3:17 that Christians are to be generous people and left it at that. But that\u2019s not what he did. Instead, John reminded us of the generosity we experienced in our time of need when Jesus gave up His very life on our behalf. Then John asks how can we not be generous towards those in need after Christ was so generous to us? All these truths we\u2019ve talked about \u2013 adoption as children, confidence on the day of Christ, being cleansed from all unrighteousness, standing firm in the truth, and more \u2013 are meant to spur us on to obey God\u2019s commands.<\/p>\n

Even then, we can\u2019t do it apart from Him. Remember that word \u201cabide\u201d? It showed up 16 times in this letter. Oftentimes, abiding was directly connected to obedience. So even after salvation, we can\u2019t obey God if it wasn\u2019t for God abiding in us and us abiding in Him. We can\u2019t do any of this on our own. Knowing the gospel, receiving salvation, obeying God\u2019s commands \u2013 it\u2019s all of God and His grace towards us.<\/p>\n

Yet, John can faithfully tell us to examine our lives to see if we truly believe. So, if you see evidence of God\u2019s salvific grace working in your life, then be encouraged and strive all the more to glorify Christ with your life. You\u2019re not perfect yet, and neither am I, but we look forward to the day when we will be like Him (3:2). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That We May Know Him by Sarah Wootten Corinth Missionary Baptist Church \u201cAnd we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tho"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13519"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13520,"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13519\/revisions\/13520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}