PJ's Journal

"How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. Dear friends, now we are the children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. Everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure." 1 John 3:1-3 From Enemy to Child! That should be the front page news of our lives! God's love is greater than anything we can compare it to. Though we have offended a Holy God who must judge sin, He still pursued us at the expense of His Son, so that He could reconcile us with Himself and make us His children! What an intimate term. I have two children, and both of them are very dear to me. I can't imagine how I would respond if something happened to them. They are my children. I would protect them at all costs. I nurt

"And now, dear children, continue in Him, so that when He appears we may be confident and unashamed before Him at His coming. If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of Him." 1 John 2:28-29 Have you ever said something bad about someone and the person found out about it? Suppose you had to meet them the next day for lunch. How would you go into that lunch? I would imagine you would go with a little bit of anxiety and a tad bit shameful. You certainly wouldn't go in confident and unashamed. Yet we are encouraged to continue in Christ (that is...not be lead astray by false teaching), so that when He appears, we will be confident and unashamed. In Christ, we have nothing to fear when He returns. Our confidence comes from the reality that we are declared righteous by God through Christ. He sees us through the eyes of grace and truth! If we try to be good enough for God apart from Christ (false teaching), then we

"I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray. As for you, the anointing you received from Him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as His anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit - just as it has taught you, remain in Him." 1 John 2:26-27 Wow! God has given us everything we need for life and godliness through the Holy Spirit's ministry in our life. Certainly this is the anointing that John is referring to, after all, the Holy Spirit is our teacher and guide. It is true that God has gifted individuals to teach others about the faith through the Scriptures, but the Holy Spirit is all you need to direct your attention to truth. The Holy Spirit teaches you that Jesus is the Son of God and the only way to the Father. The Holy Spirit can keep you from being lead astray from this very foundational truth. John emphasizes the reader to remain or continue in Christ...to

"See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. And this is what He promised us - even eternal life." 1 John 2:24-25 What they heard from the beginning was that salvation was found through Christ alone by His gift of righteousness, but that message had been distorted to a point where Christ was no longer in the picture or at best had a minimal part. The teachings of the Gnostics, which attempted to replace Christ with an "awakened conscience", had reduced the Gospel to a way instead of the way to eternal life. Christ was just one of the ways people could wake up the conscience and experience spiritual light (or truth). Of course John fights back! He is assuring true followers of Jesus that what they had heard from the beginning was the truth and the only way to eternal life. He encourages them to remain (or to continue) in the Gospel. This is the message that brings a relationsh

"But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. I do not write to you because you don't know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth. Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist - he denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also." 1 John 2:20-23 John affirms that he is writing to those who know Christ, those who have been set free by the truth, but is warns about those among them who deny the truth about Jesus. They may be religious and have fervor for "the Father" but they deny the Son. John makes the point that true faith has to acknowledge Jesus. If you deny Jesus, then you have denied the Father no matter how devout you might be toward God. The opposite is true as well, that if you acknowledge the Jesus then you have the Father. This is one of many litmus

Today was an early morning start and I didn't plan well enough to do my morning Bible Study and blog, and I now have 20 minutes before I am gone for the rest of the day. Instead of trying to cram in my quiet time during a time frame that would be difficult to meditate on the Scriptures, I thought I would throw out a question. Today in my staff meeting we discussed prayer. What is prayer and why do we pray? We were talking about the benefits of prayer, which there are many, but why do we pray? Do we pray because of the benefits we receive? Or do we pray because we recognize our absolute need and dependence upon God? I fear that we often pray with the wrong motives. We pray expecting God to see things the way we see things and fix it. We pray because it helps relieve our stress or makes us feel new. Why is it that we pray? I long for the day when individuals, families, and churches pray, not because of the benefits or out of expectation, but because we recognize our absolu

"Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us." 1 John 2:18-19 John is speaking in urgent terms. No one knows the time when Jesus will return, but John wrote and lived as if it were the last hour. This hour is not a literal 60 minute time period, it refers to a moment in time. We are living in that moment, the moment when Jesus could return. I love how Jesus addresses the timeline of His return in Revelation. He said He was coming "soon." We need to live with a since of urgency, especially as we see those who have turned the gospel into something its not and promoted themselves to be the "christ". It interesting that these false teachers are called

"Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world - the cravings of sinful man, the lust of the eyes, and the boasting of what he has and does - comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever." 1 John 2:15-17 John gives us a command to not love the world or anything in the world. What does this mean? He qualifies what he means by "anything in the world" in verse 16. He is talking about the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes, the boasting of what he has and does. All three of these come from the world and all three are self focused. When I think of a craving, I think of something I have to have at the time to satisfy me. Sometimes I walk into the convenient store and walk around looking for something to satisfy my hunger. I carefully search for that one thing that I am c

"I write to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of His Name. I write to you, fathers, because you have known Him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I write to you, dear children, because you have known the Father. I write to you, fathers, because you have known Him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the Word of God lives in you, and you have overcome the evil one." 1 John 2:12-14 These are a few interesting verses. I seems as if John is repeating himself, but it is interesting to note that verses 12 and 13 are written in the present tense and verse 14 is written in the aorist tense in the Greek language. This is why the NASB says "I am writing..." in verses 12 and 13, and "I have written" in verse 14. The aorist tense generally refers to past tense. Why did John do this? I am not sure! It could be because he

"Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him." 1 John 2:9-11 "Brother" was a common way to speak of those within the family of God. I do not believe John is speaking about a brother in a literal family sense. Jesus Christ loved those within His spiritual family, and yes it is true that He those outside the family as well; however John is speaking specifically about loving those within the family of God. You cannot hate another follower of Christ and claim to be in the light. Living in truth demands that you love those in the family of God! I don't see anyway around this! If you are living within God's will, you must love your brother! What a testimony the Church of Jesus Christ would have if th

"Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard. Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in Him and you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining." 1 John 2:7-8 God has always been about obedience from the beginning of time. John's message of obedience to God is not new, but at the same time is new because of Christ. God revealed Himself to the human race through His Son Jesus, who modeled for us perfect obedience. For John to say, "walk like Jesus walked" was a new command, but Jesus modeled perfect obedience to the Father which is not a new command. Obedience is important! Jesus is the true light that is already shining. This light exposes our disobedience with the intent for us to change. We can see what we are doing and adjust our actions. Darkness hides our disobedience. Many people, who sin against

"We know that we have come to know Him if we obey His commands. The man who says, 'I know Him,' but does not do what He commands is a liar, and the truth is not in Him. But if anyone obeys His Word, God's love is truly made complete in Him. This is how we know that we are in Him: Whoever claims to live in Him must walk as Jesus did." 1 John 2:3-6 How do I know that I have truly come to know Christ? After all, there is a high percentage of people who claim to be Christians in America, but claiming to be one and being one are two different things. Some say, "you can't judge me like that, only God knows my heart!" And to a certain extent that is true, but our heart is made public by our actions. So how can I know that I have truly come to know Christ? Look at my life! Am I walking as Jesus did? Am I obeying His commands? These are tough questions because there are times in our lives that we struggle to obey. There are times when the enemy

"My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense - Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world." 1 John 2:1-2 These are a couple of my favorite verses for several reasons. John communicates the importance of living a righteous life. He states that one of his purposes for writing this was that the reader would not sin. He understands the importance of not sinning! Sin separates us from God period! It hinders our relationship because it is an offense against the God we are trying to relate to. John also communicates grace and hope in these verses. "But if anyone does sin..." I can relate to this can you? When we sin, we need to recognize that its not the end of the world. Jesus Christ is our defense attorney who appeases the wrath of the judge. He appeased that wrath by

"If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make Him out to be a liar and His word has no place in our lives." 1 John 1:8-10 What is it that God desires of us? Does God not desire us to be honest about ourselves and our sin? Yes! He desires genuine honesty about our sin. John writes that if we claim to be without sin, then we are deceiving ourselves. There is not one of us who is perfect. Does God desire us to be perfect? Of course! Jesus is perfect and our goal is to become like Him, but God knows that this is a process. As God's people we still are tempted and fall, and we need to be honest about our sinfulness. We should never be satisfied with our sinfulness, but honest about it. When we do sin, we need to confess to God our sin. John is addressing Christians who have been s

"This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in Him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with Him yet walk in darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin." 1 John 1:5-7 God is light. What does that mean? Light exposes things, but is also one of the best examples of purity. It is the absence of darkness. Often in the scriptures, lightness and darkness were references to good and evil. So what does John mean by his declaration that God is light? I believe he is referring to the pure righteousness of God! God is purely righteous with no unrighteousness within Him. His righteousness does expose our unrighteousness, but I believe the point John is making is that Jesus is purely righteous. As a result of who Jesus is, if you, as His follower, claim to have fellowship w

"That which was from the beginning which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched - This we proclaim concerning the Word of Life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete." 1 John 1:1-4 I can imagine what might be going through the mind of John as he is penning this onto papyrus paper. "I know what I am talking about! I have seen the life (that is the resurrected Christ)! I am proclaiming what I know to be true!" This reminds me of an illustration from a book that I read from Lee Strobel about faith, knowledge, and opinion. Two men were talking about this subject and one of the men, who secretly p

"Therefore, dear friends, since you already know this, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your secure position. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be glory both now and forever! Amen." 2 Peter 3:17-18 In the final two verses of this letter, Peter encourages the readers to act both defensively and offensively when it comes to their faith. They have been warned about the destructive and persuasive ways of false teachers, and God's people should always be on their guard against false teaching. Peter has already told us that false teachers are unstable, they have no foundation! As a matter of fact, their goal is to wreck a believer's biblical foundation. When you think biblically and are grounded in the truth, then you are in a secure position...you have a solid foundation! False teaching can wreck that foundation if you tolerate it and passively invite it int

"Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do other Scriptures, to their destruction." 2 Peter 3:15-16 Why is Jesus waiting to come back? I am not sure, but I do know that the longer He waits the more opportunity people have to be rescued from their sin. His patience means salvation! Paul indeed wrote about the same things in his letters (1 Thes. 5, 1 Timothy 2), and his writings came from the wisdom that God gave him. I chuckle a little when I read Peter say, "His letters contain some things that are hard to understand..."! No kidding, just read the book of Romans. It makes me feel good to hear that Peter, of all people, affirms the difficult content of Paul's letters.