Last updated on December 22, 2024
Today’s reading is from the three short letters from the apostle John.
According to church history John was the only member of the 12 disciples to reach old age. He’s also the only one who died of natural causes. The rest were killed for their faith.
At some point John went to help lead the church in Ephesus. It was there that he most likely wrote these three short letters. Similar to Peter’s letters, they were not written to a single church or individual. He writes to remind all believers of the essentials of their faith. It’s about loving God and loving others. It’s about showing that you love God by obeying him. He says…
Don’t love the world’s ways. Don’t love the world’s goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world – wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important – has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him. The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out – but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity.
1 John 2:15-17 (The Message)
John does a great job summarizing the message when he says…
My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everything who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God, because God IS love – so you can’t know him if you don’t love. This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about – not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they don’t to our relationship with God.
1 John 4:7-10, (The Message)
Finally, John states his purpose for writing…
My purpose in writing is simply this: that you who believe in God’s Son will know beyond the shadow of a doubt that you have eternal life, the reality and not the illusion. And how bold and free we then become in his presence, freely asking according to his will, sure that he’s listening. And if we’re confident that he’s listening, we know that what we’ve asked for is as good as ours.
1 John 5:13-15, (The Message)
As someone who had followed Jesus for many years, at the end of the day what he wanted most for his fellow followers of Jesus was that they would have confidence that they were loved by God, and that God was actively working in their lives.
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