1 John

The 1st epistle of John.

1. Walking in Light

The eternal life of God was made available to mankind through Christ in the flesh.

7: We must be cleansed by Jesus blood. Where else in scripture is blood seen as something that purifies?

9: The only way we can walk with God is by confessing our sins. The only way to begin to be godly is by admitting we are not godly.

2. Keeping Commandments

2: Not just our sins, but the sins of the whole world?

Keeping commandments is how we can come to know God. If we're too busy sinning, we will never understand his purposes. But obedience allows us to participate in God's love.

6: We must imitate Jesus.

7: Old commandment, new commandment? Always has been, but we've never understood it.

15-16: These are the things that get between us and God:

desires of the flesh -- food, sex, comfort, relaxation, having a delicious life.

desires of the eyes -- always watching beautiful things and beautiful people, yearning to possess such things, wanting more than anything to be beautiful ourselves.

pride of life -- our achievements, our status, our popularity, our legacy, how big our house is, our place on the totem pole, being in charge of others, reigning supreme, having the lifestyle we want, being cool, being better than everyone else, having the greatest honors.

These desires are natural and we always have them. That's how God made us. But if we love and obsess over these desires, we'll never get around to the simple acts of obedience and love. They're always getting in the way -- so we just can't love them very much.

17: We can't love these desires too much because they will pass away. Certainly once we die they won't matter. But even before then they often stop mattering. One year you can be obsessed with possessing or achieving some kind of good thing, and then the next year it's something else. Ten years later you forget that is what you were willing to give everything for. So you can appreciate them as they come but focus on love and purity.

18: The last hour?

The antichrist?

Whoa, sudden pivot.

Jerusalem was about to be destroyed and the early church needed to prepare. The antichrist were those Jews who refused to believe in Jesus as the messiah and in his prophecy of coming destruction of the temple.

25: Jesus promised eternal life. Other people might come in and try to make Christianity about something else -- niceness, social progress, communism, etc. But Jesus taught about eternal life.

3. Children of God

2: Although God has already claimed us as his own, we don't yet fully know what we will look like in our glorious resurrection. But we will be like God. We will be like Christ. Having this hope is how we begin to be purified from all the dark things we have been stained with.

6: Stop sinning. If you keep sinning, that means you don't have hope in eternal life.

10: We can know who belongs to God by who acts righteously and who hates his brother.

14: Brotherly love is the surest sign that you have eternal life.

17: You have a duty to give good things to your brothers in the faith. Christians should not go lonely, hungry, or uncared for. Love doesn't allow such things. It's good to love people in general, but you must especially love and care for all those you know who love God, righteousness, and hope in eternal life.

19: The best way to overcome a guilty conscience and anxiety is by loving God and other people.

22: The more righteous you are, the more God will give you what you ask for. Many people simply don't ask. They don't ask for the peace, love, wisdom, or even the material things that might solve a lot of their problems and worries. But if you believe in God's promises, you must ask.

24: God has given his Spirit to us.

4. God’s Love and Truth

1: There's many spirits in the world. All kinds of ideas and people teaching us to live this way or that. We should be cautious when people are urging us one way or another.

We need to listen to those who proclaim the incarnation of Jesus. We might not agree with every opinion they have, because people come up with their own opinions all the time. But person by person, the brothers that you meet in real life, believing Protestants, Catholics, Orthodox, and any others who place their trust in the incarnate Christ are simply more trustworthy than those who deny that Jesus was from God. That's not to endorse one system or another. False teachers can take on all sorts of labels for themselves. This is about who God places in your life right in front of you.

18: The more perfected we are in love, the less we have to fear being punished.

21: Love God, love your brother. If obedience starts to get too complicated and confusing, you can leave it at that.

5. Faith and Victory in Christ

3: Jesus said his yoke was easy and his burden was light. People make burdens heavy for themselves when they love the world too much. That's where most of the anguish comes in. But obeying God is very simple.

6: Water and blood?

7: Three that testify?

14-15: Ask God for things! Too many people simply don't ask. There is so much that could be asked for, if you just bothered to hope that he might answer.

19: The whole world lies in the power of the evil one, so we must not love the things in the world. All that will decay. We want eternal life.

21: 'Little children, keep yourselves from images.' We fill our eyes with all kinds of images, every day, all day, on our phones and television, social media, advertising. We are not supposed to love these things or love what they teach us to love. Because all that is fading away. If we are focused on loving God and our brother, we won't have time to love the images of the world.