LOVING IS OBEYING

LOVING IS OBEYING

I John 5:1-5 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is a child of God. And everyone who loves the Father loves his children, too. We know we love God's children if we love God and obey his commandments. Loving God means keeping his commandments, and really, that isn't difficult. For every child of God defeats this evil world by trusting Christ to give the victory. And the ones who win this battle against the world are the ones who believe Jesus is the Son of God. NLT

There are many wonderful truths in these verses today. Let me just quickly mention some things that jump out at me. Everyone who believes that Jesus is God is a child of God. Belief is more than an acceptance of truth; it is an application of truth. It is taking what we know to be true in our minds and letting it change our hearts so that we live what we believe.

If you love God, you will love His children. There are no exceptions to this. You cannot love God and not love those who are His. You will act in a loving way towards all who are God's children, no matter who they may be, what church they may belong to, where they may live, whatever status they may have in the church or life, etc. We are given no exclusions to whom we may or may not love.

The real test of whether or not we love God is our obedience to His Word. In order to obey His Word, we must be familiar enough with it to know what it says we must do and be. It's not hard to live by Biblical truths if we truly love God. He gives us His Spirit to teach us, guide us, and empower us to obey Him.

When we are trusting in Christ, we are overcoming the ways of the world. We are developing the ability to say no to sin, and the more we resist sin, the easier it becomes to do so.

And, true believers in Christ are those who can and do resist the temptations to sin. We are not going to perfectly resist, but we will win more battles than we lose. In Christ, we are different than the world; we have victory over the things and desires of the world. We live in the world, but we don’t wallow in the world. We live in this world, but we are not held in bondage by the world.

We put our trust in Christ alone who has overcome the world. This old world is not our home; we are just passing through. We are attached to the things of God, not the world.

If you are a child of God, you live in the victory that we have in Christ Jesus. Sin will not overcome us; we will overcome it through Jesus Christ, our Lord.