-Assessment Time

"Now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming, If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him." (I John 2:28-29; read also 3:1-9)

Hey Gang: Read that verse again.  John says, "Abide in Him" always, so that when He appears we do not have to shrink into the shadows because of the things we have been doing with our lives.  In essence, John is saying that when we claim we are children of God, we need to look a heap different than when we were­- without Jesus as our Lord and Savior.

There is no greater miracle in the world than to see a drunk from skid row suddenly come to the realization there is a God who loves him and stands ready to fix and restore his live and even use them to His glory. 

His life was a mess.  He had drunk away his family, his home and business and his health but one day when he was on his back in a gutter with an empty bottle, God spoke to him: “Harold, I have something I want you to do for me.  I want you to get up out of the gutter, clean yourself up and prepare to go into all the land and preach My word”.  The transforming power of God reached deep into his gizzard and he became a powerful man of God to those who also found themselves in the gutters of this world.   

In this passage of Scripture John gives us a panoramic view of what it is like to be a child of God and fully engrained in the family of God. This is a passage that we should take-a-peek at periodically and check our commitment level to Yeshua.  In John 2:29 we read that we should “…be confident and content in our walk with God.  Are you confident and content this morning?

In verse 3:1 John tells us that we should enjoy God's love.  In essence God says, "I claim you".  Notice, in verse two He says, "Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be ."  Is it not awesome, and sometimes a wee-bit hard to totally comprehend, that God said, "You are my body, my family, I call you my children?”

It would have been nice, if John would have put a period at the end of this verse and left it but, he did not.  He went on to say, "No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." (verse 9). 

I believe the key word in the Scripture of the day is “practices".  Do we sin? yes, "…all have sinned and come short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23), but practicing sin is a horse of a different color;  Scripture says, "... practice righteousness!!

Blessings,

Gramps