1 John 5:1–5

March 15, 2010 in 1 John with 0 Comments

Every­one who believes that Jesus is the Christ has become a child of God. And every­one who loves the Father loves his chil­dren, too. 2 We know we love God’s chil­dren if we love God and obey his com­mand­ments. 3 Lov­ing God means keep­ing his com­mand­ments, and his com­mand­ments are not bur­den­some. 4 For every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve this vic­tory through our faith. 5 And who can win this bat­tle against the world? Only those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God.

Faith

Do you remem­ber why John was writ­ing this let­ter? He wrote it around the same time that he wrote his Gospel. Dur­ing that time, a group called Gnos­tics were mak­ing a lot of noise. For this group, the pur­suit of knowl­edge was more impor­tant than any­thing else. John’s gospel, and his let­ters, were a response to the gnos­ti­cism that was creep­ing into the church.

Gnos­tics would focus so much energy on gain­ing knowl­edge that they would neglect the peo­ple around them. Their spir­i­tu­al­ity was wrapped up in books, learn­ing, and debat­ing truth. They looked down on those who were less edu­cated and saw them as also being less spiritual.

So, John comes along as says, “Guys, it’s rather sim­ple. If you believe that Jesus was the Christ, you’re a child of God. And, as a child of God, all you need to do is fol­low his com­mand­ments. And that’s not bur­den­some. Because his com­mand­ments can be summed up in lov­ing God and lov­ing oth­ers. By the way, all of this hap­pens through faith.”

Of course faith is hav­ing con­fi­dence in some­thing you can­not fully see or know. In a way, it’s the oppo­site of gnos­ti­cism. Faith is accept­ing that God’s ways are beyond our ways and while we can love God with all we are, we will never fully know or under­stand every­thing there is about God. Sal­va­tion doesn’t come in know­ing all about God, it comes from hav­ing faith that God knows every­thing about us and yet still loves us.

My prayer: Lord, you know that I love knowl­edge. I love to learn and dis­cover new things. And in itself, that is not wrong. You wel­come our desire to dis­cover. In fact lov­ing you with my mind is all about learn­ing more. How­ever, may my pur­suit of knowl­edge never push away my pur­suit of you. You are far greater than any­thing I could ever learn. Amen.

Until tomor­row.