“I AM the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me”
John 14: 6
12 “Look, I AM coming soon! My reward is with Me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done. 13 I AM the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
Revelation 22: 12-13
Pastors Noreen & Henry Kevern
He Who is in me is Greater than he who is in the world
1 John 4:4
Such a short phrase but oh so powerful. As I read this this morning, it keeps playing over and over in my head. I usually concentrate on a much more complete reading in the Bible but today I want to focus on this particular phrase.
We are hammered with so much of the world that we often forget GOD and His place. Social media has taken over so many lives and everyone seems to be outdoing each other in their effort for their 15 minutes of fame. There is no lack of pride in this world. People wash themselves in their pride and cover themselves with the stink of the devil. And no one realizes it. Society has convinced us that self-love is pride and they are so far from the truth.
Pride is a sin. In pride people fall into sin. Society’s effort to be social justice warriors has taken us to the brink of disaster. They yell louder and louder in their effort to drown out the Word of GOD in their efforts to make everyone fall into the pit of sin.
GOD has been put on the back burner and no one seems to care. We, as Christians, are failing in standing firm in GOD. We have taken the phrase, “Turn the other cheek’ as meaning to stand down, when in fact, JESUS is telling us to stand firm in our faith and when they strike you on the one cheek to turn and let them strike you on the other. GOD is not telling us that we should back down or away. No, we are to stand firm in GOD’s Word and in our faith.
But how are we to do that? This one phrase says it all. He Who is in me is greater than he who is in the world.
GOD’s HOLY SPIRIT comes into us when we surrender our lives to Him, when we confess our sins and make Him the LORD and SAVIOR of our lives. But far too often, people choose cheap faith over real faith. They make their confession of faith without putting any effort into it. They need to make a confession of sin and allow GOD to forgive them. They want JESUS but do not want to live out having faith in GOD. They keep on in their sins and are never born again.
Born again means that we begin again as a baby. That is how JESUS came to earth. It amazes me when I think about how GOD chose to become one of us, His creations, in order to show us what we as humans had been missing about how we are to live. And the point is, in order to be born again we have to put off all that we were before we came to know JESUS. As Paul put it, we put off the old man of sin.
We have to learn to begin again. We have to put all our preconceived notions away and get into the Word of GOD. We have to spend time with the Word, learning, reflecting, and calling on the HOLT SPIRIT to open our hearts and minds so that we can see things from GOD’s point of view. And because we have faith, greater is He Who is in me that he who is in the world.
But we don’t have the kind of faith that GOD is looking for. We are so consumed with our phones, with social media, with our idols and with our pride that we have put GOD in a box only to be taken out at certain times. And then we blame GOD for all that happens.
Life is hard. GOD never said life would be easy. Sometimes we cannot handle it and we get caught up in our pain that we cannot see GOD or His plan for our lives. I know, because depression held me captive for years. I kept hearing all the lies and I let them hold me down. I have known GOD for as long as I remember, and even in that knowledge, I kept believing that GOD was there but that He really was not that concerned with me. Have you ever been in a place in your heart where those around you would say that you are worthless, that put you down and make you feel like nothing or do something to you that is horrible? It is a terrible place to be, especially when it is from those who supposedly love you.
So then what about pride for yourself in these situations?
There is a difference between pride and self-love. Pride makes you put yourself above others. Self-love lets you love yourself while loving others. Self-love does not make you think you are better than others.
Children are full of self-interest. They want what they see in front of them. They want what someone else has. They throw tantrums when they do not get what we want. And if left to themselves they would soon die. This is the job of parents. Parents guide and discipline, nurture and love.
And when we come to GOD as a child, we have those same tendencies. We fight giving up the things we have loved for so long because we are afraid. Afraid of what? We are afraid that people will say something that we do not want to hear. But we have to put GOD first in our lives and to be afraid of what HE thinks and what HE says of us.
This world has allowed families to perish all in the effort of promoting pride. Pride causes us to fall into sin. Sin is anything that goes against what GOD says.
We sin when we put ourselves before others. We sin when we spend more time with our idols, whether they be our cars, our tv shows, our sports teams, or efforts to make ourselves sexy or when we commit shameful acts of adultery, having sex with anyone, homosexuality and killing our unborn children. that takes our focus off of GOD.
We sin when we covet a person or thing. Coveting is running amuck in our lives. Companies advertise to us to crave and that is coveting. Craving has brought us to despair. We want more and more. And we don’t think about how we will go to the grave with nothing because we cannot take things with us.
We hear the phrase, “Eat, drink, and be merry.” But we do not hear the next part, “For tomorrow we die.” We eat and drink and tell ourselves to be merry because we are so lost. We do not know what we crave, but we feel it deep inside our souls that there is something more.
And that something more is GOD. We were created by Him for Him. We were created to crave GOD. We were created to be more than who and what we think we are. We were created by GOD in love and we are to learn to love Him, others and ourselves. And because He lives in us, greater is He Who is in us than he who is in the world.
And we were created so that we could gain wisdom to go along with love.
But wisdom is far from most. People want to gain fame, money, things and are so prideful. Anger is so prevalent in this world. Just look at all the hate that seems to be everywhere. Hate causes us to hurt others. In matters not what we use to show that hate. It is the emotion, the acting out that causes other people to hurt and kill. Pride causes us to only see only their desire and that desire only makes a person only see self. Pride causes porn; exual immorality; greed; hatred; lying; abandonment; wars; poverty. All sin is the work of the devil. If he cannot be GOD, he will drag everyone who will allow him to lead them away from GOD.
Porn, no matter if it is soft or hard porn, is so very destructive. Most people do not even know what porn is. They think it is just dirty books or videos. But it is so much more. When we, whether a man or a woman dress to seek others to lust after you, when we put our bodies on display to show off and are not modest; when we make videos of ourselves naked or clothed in skimpy clothing, we are creating porn. It does not empower someone to make a video or send pictures of oneself to show off our bodies. You are not dressing or undressing but allowing the devil to use you to cause others to lust after you. Porn is just one form of sexual immorality. And sexual immorality leads us into so much sin.
And the devil has convinced people that if you speak against sin, you are intolerant, a bigot, or a racist. That is such nonsense. To point out sin is in fact what we are supposed to be doing. In Leviticus 19:17 it says: “Do not hate a fellow Israelite in your heart. Rebuke you neighbor frankly so that you will not share in their guilt.” And JESUS said in Matthew 18:15-17: “IF your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. If they still refuse to listen, tell it in the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.” In the most clear sense, GOD tells us that if we do not point out others in their sin, we are allowing that person to fall prey to the devil and that is not love.
The only way one learns right from wrong is to have it pointed out to them. By me telling you what sin is may or may not turn you away from sin. But if two or more of us point it out, it may have more weight. And if still the person refuses to see what they are doing is sin, then we are to point it out as the church, not as an established religion but as the body of Christ, because as the body of Christ, we are the church. We are to care for each other and help each other to walk in the way of the LORD. And then if the person refuses to confess their sin and change, we are to leave them as children of the father of lies. The devil is pagan because he does not worship GOD. Now the devil knows GOD but hates GOD because of his pride, because he wants to be greater than GOD. But GOD is greater because He lives in us.
Sin is running rampant in the world because of he who is in the world. The devil has been in the world since it was created and has been leading people into sin. And sin is abounding because the devil has placed in people’s hearts that their sin is not sin but it is their right to do whatever they want, especially if it is against GOD’s Word. But GOD is greater than the devil and that irritates the devil.
When we accept JESUS as our LORD and SAVIOR, His HOLY SPIRIT comes and lives in us. He will speak softly to us so we have to listen carefully in order to hear. And no matter what is going on in our lives, if we just keep on persevering in our faith and in His Word, HE Who is in us is greater than he who is in the world.
We have to become a little child and learn from GOD. He is our parent and He will teach us His ways if we would let Him. We have to learn to have self-control, which is a gift from the HOLY SPIRIT. And allowing GOD to have control over our lives will bring us into our destiny.
One of the saddest things we see today is how the devil is destroying families. A whole family unit, father, mother and child(ren) is what GOD created. GOD is a family unit. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Father, Who disciplines, the Holy Spirit as the mother who teaches and the Son as the one who listens and learns from His parents. WE need to be GOD-ly parents. We need both a father and a mother. GOD created man and woman in His own image, in the image of GOD HE created them so that we would want to be like Him. And yes, marriage is between a man and a woman. Anything other than that is from the evil one.
If you claim you are a Christian, every part of your life should be imitating GOD. We are to be holy, because GOD is holy. We cannot allow the devil to lead us into sin. We have to stand firm in GOD’s Word and in our faith. When we turn the other cheek, let it be in strength and not backing down to the one who is in the world. Let our hearts and lives be firmly committed to the LORD. Let us walk in the light of His love. And let us not be afraid to say what sin is.
HE Who is in you is greater than he who is in the world
