[Day 26] A Study of 1 John

Top Level Notes for 1 John 5:18-21

Verse 18: WE KNOW with absolute confidence that anyone born of God does not deliberately and knowingly practice committing sin.

  • Jesus within us carefully watches over us and protects us from evil.
  • The devil does not lay hold (get a grip) on him or touch him.

Verse 19: WE KNOW that we are of God. Everything around us is of and under the power/control of the evil one.

Verse 20: WE KNOW that Jesus has come into this world.

  • He has given us understanding and insight to perceive and recognize Him Who is True.
    • We are IN Him Who is True -> His Son Jesus Christ.
    • The True God and life eternal.

Verse 21: Keep yourself from anything that puts itself above God in your life (false idols)

  • Anything and everything that would occupy the place in your heart He alone deserves to inhabit.
  • From any substitute for Him that would take first place in your life.

 

  • WE KNOW – that true believers do not go on knowingly and deliberately sinning (practicing/committing).
  • WE KNOW – that we are OF GOD and no longer part of this world ruled by the power of satan.
  • WE KNOW – that our King, the Lord Jesus Christ, was sent by the Father to teach us about Himself and give us a model of righteousness and truth.
  • Keep NO idols in your life that replace the Lord in your life. Your idols and God cannot coexist in your heart.

[Day 25] A Study of 1 John

Top Level Notes for 1 John 5:11-17

Verse 11&12: This is the testimony a person HAS that believes in the Son of God:

  • God gave us eternal life, and this life is in His Son
  • He who possesses the Son, HAS eternal life
  • He who does not possess the Son, does not have that life

Verse 13: John writes this to believers so that they who believe in and trust the Son of God will know with settled and absolute knowledge they already have eternal life.

Verse 14: With this knowledge we can have the assurance and privilege of boldness which we have IN Him.

  • This confidence is the knowledge that whatever we ask according to His will, He listens to and hears us.
    • What we ask will be in His will because we are following in His truth. His will becomes our greatest desire.

Verse 15: We can rejoice over our prayers to the Lord offered in faith and seeking His purposes; we can trust they will be answered and give Him the glory when we see those prayers come to pass as we had faith they would (how we expected).

  • I must get better at obtaining this type of prayer life.

Verse 16: If I see a fellow brother in Christ committing a sin they routinely struggle with and that sin is not sin that leads to death (willfully denying the truth and existence of the One True God) then I can pray for God’s power to forgive and restore his life. If I know that someone has openly renounced Christ then praying for forgiveness for that sin is ineffectual.

Verse 17: All wrongdoing is sin. There are sins that do not lead to spiritual death that may be repented of and forgiven.

[Day 24] A Study of 1 John

Top Level Notes for 1 John 5:7-10

Verse 7&8: Two or three witnesses were required by law to constitute adequate testimony.

  • In heaven – the unseen Father, the Word before time, and the influence of the Holy Spirit are all that is needed in the spiritual realm. All powers and principalities know who the Father, Word, and Holy Spirit are.
  • On earth we have 3 witnesses:
    • The Spirit of God:
      • Talked to Abraham
      • Talked to Moses, Joshua, Isiah, and the prophets.
      • Descended upon Jesus in His Baptism in the Jordan.
    • The Water:
      • Those who saw Jesus baptized and the ministry that followed the water and proclamation of the Spirit that Jesus is the Son of God.
    • We have the Blood:
      • The crucifiction and death of the sinless sacrifice that justifies and purifies us.

Verse 9: We accept man’s testimony -> the testimony of the apostles and men of God who witnessed the water, the Spirit, and death of our Savior. How much more then shall we depend on and believe the testimony of the Almighty.

  • What the Lord has said will justify us for all eternity -> MUST be so.

Verse 10: So, if I believe in the Son of God, then I have the witness of God living/dwelling in me. When my heart is following and loving God in all that I do, all I need to do is listen to the Lord’s voice inside of me to hear His attesting of the Truth.

  • The person who does not believe in God essentially throws the testimony of the witness of God out the window and virtually calls Him a liar. This person has not believed all of the evidence set forth by God regarding His Son.

[Day 23] A Study of 1 John

Top Level Notes for 1 John 5:6

Verse 6: He (Jesus) that came by water AND blood.

  • Jesus’ ministry was inaugurated by the baptism in the Jordan.       He received the Father’s testimony to His Messiahship and Divine Sonship.
    • In John 1:32-34, John himself, “saw and bare record that Jesus Christ is the Son of God”.
    • Baptism of the water and spirit with He has instituted as a standing seal and means of incorporation with Him.
  • With His own blood He entered in once into the Holy place of heaven.
    • These two past facts as witnessed by John are this abiding testimony to us, by virtue of the permanent application to of their cleansing and atoning power.
  • It is the infallible withness of the Holy Spirit that gives authority to the water and blood sacraments of purification into the body of Christ.

[Day 22] A Study of 1 John

Top Level Notes for 1 John 5:1-5

Verse 1 & 2: How do I know that I am capable of a love that serves and cares for other believers?

  1. I believe that Jesus is the Christ
  2. I believe/know that I am a born again child of His
  3. I have a deep inset desire from God (His nature) to care for and serve others

How do I know that I and loving the children of God the way He intends?

  1. I LOVE God Himself!
  2. I obey His commands

Verse 3: The true love of God defined:

  1. I love God when I do what He commands in His word.
  2. The commands are a true joy; not burdensome or loathsome.

Verse 4: God has conquered death and the power of sin (the world) in our loves. When I am IN Him, I too have victory over the world around me. Our faith is the fortress that keeps us safe; a refuge from the evil in this world.

Verse 5: The ONLY way to overcome this world is through the conqueror Himself -> Jesus Christ.

[Day 21] A Study of 1 John

Top Level Notes for 1 John 4:18-21

Verse 18: Dread does not exist in love, but fully mature love shoo’s fear out the door and expels every trace of terror.

  • This is the love we learn from God.
  • Bold confidence, based on love, cannot coexist with fear.
  • Fear, by anticipating punishment (through consciousness and deserving of it), has it even now, that is, a taste of the punishment to come.
  • Godly fear of offending God is quite different/distinct from slavish fear of consciously deserved punishment.
    • The latter fear is natural to us all until love casts it out.

Verse 19: We on our part love God, our brethren, and fellow man because it was He who first loved us.

  • When we understand the deep love God has for us (by internalizing the great act of sending His Son to die was), then we will know that with His love for us we do not have to fear…while we were yet sinners, God sent His Son to die for us.

Verse 20: The eyes are our leaders in love.

  • Nature is prior to grace; we by nature love things seen.
    • Seeing is an incentive to love.
  • If we do not love our brothers and sisters in Christ – the visible representatives of God -> how can we love God, the invisible One, the One whose children they are?
    • The true ideal lost in Adam is realized in Christ in Whom God is revealed as He is, and man as he ought to be.
    • Thus, by faith in Christ, we learn to love both the One True God, and the true man, and so to love our brothers and sisters bearing His image.

Verse 21: This was commanded by Jesus Himself.

  • He who loves, will do what the object of his love wishes.

[Day 20] A Study of 1 John

Top Level Notes for 1 John 4:13-17

Verse 13: When we love one another, God lives (takes up residence) in us. His love is then brought to maturity in us.

  • Because of this (God living in us) we come to know that He not only lives in us, but we live IN Him. We know that He is in us by perceiving the Holy Spirit in us who He has given.

Verse 14: John has the added extra for his church because a lot of them were able to witness Jesus and see (through His life) that He indeed had been sent by the Father to save the world.

  • We have not seen Jesus in the flesh but our call, by John, to rest assured is no less important.

Verse 15: John now embarks on reiterating what he has already taught us in this part of the letter.

  • Anyone who confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, has the Father living in them. In the same way we live in the Father.
    • We have the wisdom and discernment of the Holy Spirit and us living in Him means that we reflect His goodness and mercy.

Verse 16: As we live more and more in Him and see Himself in us we begin to understand the crazy love He has for us.

  • Since God is love, the more we continue in Him and He in us, the more our understanding of His love grows and becomes real in us.

Verse 17: In this place where God is in us and we are in Him -> the love is brought to completion so that we are only emulating love as well. It is then that we can walk fearless into the Day of Judgement, because we are His image in this world as He once was.

[Day 19] A Study of 1 John

Top Level Notes for 1 John 4:6-12

Verse 6: We ARE children of GOD!

  • John is telling his church that they should have confidence in what they believe.
    • Being that they drink up the truth of God’s word and bask in the knowledge of Him 2 things happen.
      1. People truly searching will listen to them and their teaching
      2. Those who are not of God (not called by Him) will not listen or pay attention

When you, yourself, are confident in your relationship and rest in the Truth of the Almighty God, you will have the ability to discern who is of God and searching Him and those who are of this world and of the spirit of error.

Verse 7: You cannot truly be begotten of God and Love Him and not love your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. When you love your fellowmen your relationship with the Almighty will grow.

Verse 8: God IS Love -> love comes from Him. You can not KNOW God if you do not love.

Verse 9: The fact that God IS love was displayed through the sending of His Son to this earth to die on a tree and be the propitiation for our sins. The sending of Jesus as an act of love was also through His teaching we would have the knowledge by living in and through Him (His ways).

Verse 10: God didn’t send His Son because we loved Him (as a response to our love), no, He did it entirely out of His love for us.

Verse 11: If God has loved us so much and all of His actions stem from His love toward us then we must love others so that God can be seen through how we treat others.

Verse 12: We have not seen God Himself with our eyes but if we allow love to guide our actions (Love toward others) when we can know that God abides in us because His love is what we draw from; His love is made perfect in us.

[Day 18] A Study of 1 John

Top Level Notes for 1 John 4:1-5

Verse 1: There is but one Spirit of Truth and one spirit of the antichrist.

  • All men’s teaching must be tested by the word of God.
  • There are many false teachers/prophets: They went out from us but they were not OF us.

Verse 2: This is how you know if some is of the Spirit of Truth:

  • Every Spirit which confesses and acknowledges the fact that Jesus Christ [actually] has become man and come in the flesh, is of God, and has God as His source.
    • In a man’s teaching he must openly confess in public what is true.
    • Rome, by the doctrine of the immaculate conception of the virgin Mary, denies Christ’s proper humanity.

Verse 3: In contrast, every spirit which does not openly and publicly acknowledge that Jesus has come in the flesh is not of God.

  • This non-confession is the spirit of the antichrist.
  • We know him to be coming and is in fact already in the world.

Verse 4: I AM of God, I BELONG to Him

  • Through the death of Jesus the antichrist (and his agents) have already been defeated.
  • God, Who lives in me, is mightier and greater than he who is in the world.

Verse 5: They (the false prophets) proceed from the world and ore of the world (not of God) ->

  • Because of this, it is out of this world that they speak…not out of God
  • This world listens and pays attention to them
  • Satan loves the false teacher/prophet who can lead astray the lost; better yet confuse, the righteous.

[Day 17] A Study of 1 John

Top Level Notes for 1 John 3:20-24

Verse 20: Following from verse 19 -> When our heart is in tormenting self-accusation make us feel guilty and condemn us, we can have the knowledge that WE ARE OF THE TRUTH; we can then instruct our hearts and reassure ourselves in His presence.

  • We are IN GOD’s HANDS -> He is greater than our consciences (our hearts)
  • He knows everything and has our best interests (which is His will for us) at heart.

Verse 21: So, when I do not allow my heart to accuse me, then I can approach the throne of God with confidence.

Verse 22: I can then receive from Home whatever I ask, because I obey Him and His answers are my action in faith and obedience to Him. This is what is pleasing to Him.

Verse 23: And this is His commandment:

  1. THAT I BELIEVE IN THE NAME OF HIS SON THE LORD JESUS CHRIST
  2. THAT WE SHOULD LOVE ONE ANOTHER
    • This is what He commanded us from the beginning

Verse 24: Everyone who believes in His name and loves his brother and sister -> Abides in HIM and He in them.

  • How do we know (have proof) that He really lives and makes His home in us? -> by the Holy Spirit Whom He has given to us.