church2go

I remember a story that Johnny Warren the soccer bloke who died last year told in a coaching clinic I went to back in the 1970’s.

He told the story of an Irish kid who was told by his coach to practice kicking with the instep of the foot. Use both feet but practice using the inside of the foot. Now this kid was used to play football every afternoon but for a whole week but for that week he wasn’t seen by his mates at all. The next week at football training, the coach asked why he hadn’t been playing football with the other kids.

His reply was that he didn’t know what else to practice so he practiced what he knew he had to. He had stayed home and practiced kicking at football against the wall every afternoon with the inside of his foot. He practiced what he knew to practice.

He grew up to be George Best. One of the iconic footballers of all time.

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    The author now focuses on the relationship of the three fundamental elements so important to him in the knowledge of God: faith, love, and obedience. “To believe, have faith”, first introduced at 3:23, becomes the primary term in this section. In John, faith requires not only that something is held true, but that someone has entered into one’s life. A commitment has been made and a relationship established that one can then only “confess”. 

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1JN 4:1 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

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3:1 How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

Notice the terms, lavished, children of God. This is something special. God’s love is amazing. Too much for us to fathom, but rejoice in it. Revel in it, take it.

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     In the first three sections of his letter, the author has been directly presenting his followers with “tests” by which they could know they were truly in union with God. At the same time, he was dealing with his opponents by showing that they failed each of these tests of discipleship. In this section he reverses his method. He is no longer using indirect accusations against his opponents, but now confronts them and their teaching by openly labeling them for what they are: antichrists (vv. 18-19). He exposes their method: they lie and deny Jesus as Christ (vv. 20, 23). He teaches his followers how to cope with this: they are to remain in what they were taught (vv. 24-26).

 Finally, he assures his followers of their power to overcome: “His anointing teaches you” (vv. 27-28).

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