Posts from April 2021

1 John, Day 6 1 John 4:7 – 5:5 Love Is a Verb “Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place” (Zora Neale Hurston). The epistle of 1 John is a spiritual PSAT exam: Prove Salvation Abides True. It is a series of tests, as it were, to “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves” (2 Corinthians 13:5). Our passage focuses on the test of love. The Greek word translated “love” in this…

1 John, Day 5 THE TRUTH 1 JOHN 4:1 – 6 A witness testifying in court must state their testimony is the “truth” and nothing but the “truth.” Not everyone tells the truth. It starts from the time we begin to talk. “Did you eat that cookie?” asks Mom. The child replies, “It wasn’t me.” It’s built into our DNA because we are sinners. Telling lies only leads to more lies, and yet we still do it. The main liar…

1 John, Day 4 When Love Breaks Through (1 John 3:10 – 24) By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers (1 John 3:16). As he sat in his car, he didn’t know what he was going to say to the love of his life. A few decisions he had made would shake up the relational ecosystem of their lives, sending shock waves through their family,…

1 John, Day 3 DISTINGUISHING TRUE CHRISTIANS FROM THOSE WHO WERE NOT CHRISTIANS “Interlude of Confidence” — Chapter 2:12 – 14 “Avoid the World’s Evils” — Chapter 2:15 – 17 “The Fellowship of Truth” — 2:18 – 27  The apostle John states to believers in this passage that when you receive Christ as your Savior, your heart has been renewed. You have been given the light from God through the Lord Jesus Christ. Love for your fellow brother has been…

1 John, Day 2 Fellowship of Righteousness (1 John 2:28 – 3:9) “Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning…

1 John, Day 1 1 John 1 One of the things that separate Christianity from other religions is that we do not find our way to God. Instead, God seeks us out. Perhaps the best illustration of this truth is found in the parable Jesus told in Luke 15:1 – 7, the parable of the lost sheep. Because we have communion with God through the sacrifice of Christ, I think it’s easy for us to forget just how special God…

2 Peter, Day 4 2 Peter 3 | Back to the Future “The future influences the present just as much as the past” (Friedrich Nietzsche) One of my all-time favorite movies is Back to the Future, in which the star is literally driven into the past and must return to the future, which would bring him to the present. In the BTTF trilogy, our hero also spends time in the future. One of the lessons of the movies is that…

2 Peter, Day 3 False Teachers, Part 2 Scripture Reading: 2 Peter 2:12 – 22 Growing up, I had a friend who got involved in a cult when he was in high school. This cult preyed on young people, and he got sucked in. He left home with the cult’s help and they moved him to a different city. Since he was not yet 18, they denied any knowledge of where he was or of helping him at all. His…

2 Peter, Day 2 Among Us (Heresy in the Church) 2 Peter 2:1 – 11 Peter begins his second letter focusing on several different subjects, including growth as an authentic believer. Peter ends the first chapter of his second letter verifying the Spirit-driven authenticity of the Gospel that was taught by him and other spiritual leaders. He uses the final verse of the chapter to point out that the writers of Scripture wrote every word under the inspiration of the…

2 Peter, Day 1 The True (2 Peter 1) “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. For this very…