I am His and He is mine

Hello friends! Welcome back to the 1 John series. We are in chapter 4.

Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world. (Verses 1 -3)

Stick very close to God's word and depend on that for truth and not on others.

You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood. (Verses 4 - 6)

I talked about this a little bit yesterday. We are of the Father, not of the earth so we shouldn't be worrying about the judgement of those who are of the earth because their judgement doesn't matter. It is only God's judgement that matters. He is the only one with righteous eyes so he can see things for what they really are and we cannot.

You might be asking a question I once asked: "But we live in the world, so how can we NOT be of the world?" In the beginning of our lives, we are of the world because we live in the world, of course, but God is not of this world. But because some of us are connected to Him that makes us of Him and not of the earth. We know Him and He knows us, that is what makes the difference. I am His and He is mine, that is the deciding factor. I am born again. I shed my old life and was born into a new one where I am of Him and Him alone.

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son and an atoning sacrifice for our sin. Dear friends since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. (Verses 7 -12)

God showed us the truest example of love through Jesus' crucifixion. He died holy and blameless Himself, but He died with the world's sin on His flesh. We are forgiven for our trespasses because of His sacrifice. Because of His great show of love, we are no longer chained to this world and have to be part of it, but we can be part of Him and we can have eternal life with Him.

He did the impossible. He made it so to die is to gain. He saved us. What a perfect time for this subject, for these verses. He WAS enough, IS enough, and will ALWAYS be enough. So take time to find joy in that.

This Sunday, we will be taking a break from our 1 John series and will be going into the Easter story in Luke. After that my posting schedule will be Monday - Thursday and we will continue in 1 John. We are almost finished with it. We have part 2 of chapter 4 and then chapter 5. What should we get into next?