Good Morning Friends,
“Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn
us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because
we obey 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. Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we
know that he lives in us: we know it by the Spirit he gave us.” (1 John
3:21-24)
John reduces Christian faith to its
foundational elements: a relationship of trust in the Lord and a relationship
of love to those around us. Everything else that is taught in the Bible flows
from one of these two foundational elements.
What John teaches is wholly consistent with
what Jesus taught. Jesus taught that the first command is to love God and the
second command is to love your neighbor and that all of the Law and the
Prophets, all of the rest of what God has taught, hang on those two commands. (Matthew
22:37-39)
From these right relationships flow freedom
from guilt and emptiness.
From these right relationships flow confidence
before God.
From these right relationships flow power in
our prayer life.
From these right relationships flow the
assurance of our salvation.
All of those things are built on the
foundation. That’s where it must begin: a relationship of trust in the Lord and
a relationship of love toward others.
His, by Grace,
Steve
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