Category: Weekly Devotional

Are we people lovers or man slayers?

Are we people lovers or man slayers?

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The message of God and the mission of God extend from Genesis through the Revelation of John. The message is not understood if we decouple the Old Testament from the New Testament. In today’s passage, John refers to the message his audience has heard from the beginning. Some commentators understand this beginning to refer to when they first heard the gospel. However, I believe the beginning is in Genesis due to the context referring immediately to the murder of Abel by his brother Cain, the first story following the ouster of Adam and Eve from the garden in Genesis three. The message is to love one another and not be like Cain. The message to love was not explicit but implicit because immediately after the murder, God communicated with Cain and cursed the ground in relation to Cain, who was a farmer.

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Is antichrist here already? Or is he yet to come?

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John exhorts us not to believe every spirit but to test the spirits. Paul also warns about what spirit motivates certain teachers when he writes, “…some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons…” These same exhortations or warnings are necessary today. These same spirits are well and active in the world today. These spirits are not discerned broadly today because our culture has bought into the enlightenment mentality that all is material. There are no spirits, including God.

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The overcoming power of abiding

The overcoming power of abiding

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Everyone who practices casually and brazenly sinning not only practices sin but is also practicing lawlessness. Lawlessness (Greek anomia) refers to a more heinous and diabolical level of sin than we might think of as ordinary daily infractions against the Lord, which John has already addressed.

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How glorious shall we be?

How glorious shall we be?

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God’s great and glorious love produces results in us that can only really be seen or understood by divine revelation.

We’ll do a little word study today. The Greek word (potapos) translated here as “what kind” is also translated as “how great” and “glorious” according to Bauer, Arndt, & Gingrich’s A Greek English Lexicon of the New Testament. So, the Father’s love is of a particular kind, is a great love, and I believe the context warrants the adjective a glorious love.

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How to resolve your doubts.

How to resolve your doubts.

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Every Christian believer, especially those young in the faith, has times of doubt, especially those John has already called “little children.” As one grows up from being a “little child” to a “young man” and then to a “Father,” those times of doubt naturally fade.

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Is the antichrist now or not yet?

Is the antichrist now or not yet?

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Many antichrists have come and provided proof that we live in the last hour. I regularly hear people referring to the Hamas/Israel war and state that they believe this is a sign that we are living in the last days. This may be true, but we lose track of the absolute statement by John that he and his friends were already living in the last hour. The last hour indicates that there won’t be another one. The last days or last hour is not something we are looking forward to; we are living in the last hour just as John and his disciples were.

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My story in brief…

Christ first came into my life at the age of 5 during a series of evangelistic meetings in our tiny country Quaker church house in Gate, Oklahoma. Since then it has been a process of “Stumbling forward by grace, through faith in Christ.” I experienced a significant personal revival at the age of 19 and have been much in love with the Lord ever since…five decades-plus.

My passion is to enjoy the Lord by encouraging others to make progress in their lives…living life successfully. I do that primarily through my disciple-making efforts and through my writing.

I spent about 20 years in public ministry and at the age of 40 decided that I had allowed my passion for ministry to impede my prior duty to my family, so I stepped aside. I found a new career as a financial advisor and now make my living serving my financial planning clients.

I now consider myself to be a bi-vocational minister of the gospel.

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