Dave's Diary

Daily Readings: 1 John 1-2 and Psalm 48

The letters of 1-3 John were written by the apostle John, the son of Zebedee and brother of James, around about 90AD. At the time he lived in Ephesus and probably wrote it as a letter to be circulated among the churches of that region.

Having known and loved Jesus in the flesh, and having discovered, through Jesus, the joy and abundance of living in deep fellowship with God Himself, John was intent on exhorting his readers to share this glorious and life-giving experience (1:1-4).

 ³ 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. ⁴ We write this to make our joy complete.

Living in fellowship with God is a matter of stepping out of darkness and into light, and it thus begins with (and continues by) being honest about our sin and failures, admitting them to God, receiving the joy of His forgiveness, and being restored to fellowship with Him through Jesus Christ (1:5 – 2:2).

This fellowship with God is then expressed, maintained and deepened by continuing to live in the light through obedience to His Word and His Way. In practice, that amounts to living as Jesus lived (2:3-6). Zooming in on this Jesus-like life we discover that it is centred on abandoning love for the world and its lusts (2:15-17) and choosing to live lives of love for others (2:7-11) and love for God Himself (2:5,15).

The “antichrists” John refers to in 2:18-27 were false teachers who co-operated with the enemy of Christ (the devil) and taught against Him, by denying that Jesus is the Christ (God’s anointed Saviour King) and thereby abandoning the Way of salvation. John urges his readers to reject these lies and to trust the guidance of the Holy Spirit within them (v.27) and the teaching they had originally received from the other apostles and from John himself (v.24). Only then will they maintain their hold on the eternal life Jesus has given them.

Life Application: Take time to examine your life in light of the command to love God and love others. Confess to the Lord the shortcomings you discover. Receive His forgiveness, be restored in your fellowship with Him, and then set out into the day intent of living out that fellowship through a life of love.