Love and Acceptance

Hello friends and welcome back to 1 John Series. Today, we are finishing up chapter 3. We will pick up with verse 16:

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, lets us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. (Verses 16 - 18)

Because it is Holy week, this verse resonates in my heart right now. Jesus laid down his life and if we called His then we are to act like Him. We ought to lay down our lives, needs, wants, and desires for the good of His kingdom. Because we we share in His suffering, we share in His glory and nothing goes unnoticed by the Father. We shouldn't only talk and love like Christ, but also act like Him. We are called to be the salt of the earth. We should radiate our Abba's light. Our actions should be like light in the darkest of nights.

We are meant to be different than those of the earth because we are NOT OF THE EARTH! We shouldn't be worrying about the judgement of those who are of this earth because their judgement is not the judgement that matters! There is only one who is free to judge and He judges righteously. His judgement, His opinion, is the ONLY one that matters!

There is a poem that goes: 'You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all the people all of the time.' You are never going to please everyone at once, so why not seek to only please one? And I don't know about you but I would rather please the one whose judgement matters than please a whole crowd whose judgment will not matter.

We are different than those who are of the earth because we are of the Father. We will stick out and sometimes not be accepted. But having earthly acceptance isn't a goal we need to obtain because it is an impossible goal anyway. If I managed to be accepted by everyone, at some point it would fade, but God has accepted me already and He will NEVER un-accept me. He will never forsake me!

This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. The one who keeps God's commands lives in him, and he in them. And this how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us. (Verses 19 -24)

Believe in the name of His Son: that is our ticket into life everlasting. We don't have to jump through hoops. We are on the other side of the cross so we are already forgiven. So, go and be the salt of the earth and SMILE! How great is our God and how great is Christ's sacrifice.