“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
What Does Faith in GOD Look Like? A Study of 1 John 1
1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 2 The Life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. 3 We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. 4 We write this to make our[a] joy complete.
1 John 1:1-4
For the next few weeks we will be going through 1 John. It is such a good letter to all of us. It is a teaching tool to learn just what we are to believe of GOD and how to live our lives in GOD. It offers no corporate church rules but it clearly shows us how we are to live as Christians, in spirit and in truth. Far too often, people get caught up in their religion and not in their faith. Jesus taught us that the Father is looking for us to do one thing: “to believe in the One that He sent.” (John 6:29) A very simple statement by Jesus but one so deep that it takes us a lifetime to learn. And that is the point of life; to learn how to live our lives in God. And the only way we learn the way of the LORD is to study His Word and focus on HIM above all by putting Him first in our lives. But life in His way seems to be so caught up in so many rules and regulations that churches have required those who go to them do. Now in the Jewish faith, there are 613 Mitzvot or Commandments. Now God gave Moses the Ten Commandments that we are to live by and Jesus put all ten into His great commandment; “Love the LORD your God with all of your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your mind and with all of your strength. And the second is this: love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:29-31)
We need to be reading and studying and mediating on the Word of God. Not when we feel like it, but every day. The Bible should not be optional as a Christian because it is our Father’s love letter to us. It contains all that we need to learn about God. Granted some of it is hard but that is okay. We are to overcome the world and its desires and be at peace and rest in God and learn and walk in His ways.
When I look at God, I am amazed at His love. God the Creator of all things, created us in His image. Nothing else in creation is created as such. He created the heavens and the earth, but none of those things are in His image. That makes us different from every thing else He created. The birds in the air, the animals of the earth, even the sun and the moon are dependent upon God for everything. Their instinct, their nature does not even think about what or how it is supposed to act, they just do because that is what they were created to do. They were not given freewill as we have been given. God takes care of them. He provides food for the birds and animals. He sends rain to water the earth. He causes the stars and planets to move in their proper places. He controls all those things. But when it came to creating humans, God had something different in mind. He created us and implanted in us the desire to love Him. He did not want us to be mindless creatures or things, but beings that chose Him. He created all things for us. And in return, He wants us to want Him. Think about that for a moment: God wants us to want Him.
We have a lot of wants as humans. But our basic want should be God. When we focus on God and not the world and its desires, we find what we are actually created for. But we have a hard time finding that truth.
God’s message to us is still the same as it was in the beginning: to walk with Him. He still wants us. Even though we keep on sinning, God still wants us.
Just look at the world around us. So much hatred, discord, violence and despair: but it does not have to be so. We are to be overcomers of our very actions. When we accept Jesus as our LORD and Savior, we are to put on His very being. That is why the Holy Spirit comes and lives in us. And by calling on the Name of God we can overcome. We have to learn to desire Him first and with every inch of our being. And we have to do the work of God; to believe in the One that He sent.
I know I talk about this a lot, but it really amazes me that God would choose to become one of us. Even though He gave us freewill, He chases after us because He loves us. God loves you and me. He gave us His Word; He gave us people to teach us. He gave us the desire to want Him. He gave us love; for Him and for each other and for self.
God appeared on earth. He chose to go through all the experiences that we go through in order to give us the perfect example of what He looks like and what He created us for. His human life is our example of a perfect life of always looking to the Father and calling on Him. Of looking to doing His will; of putting Him first, others second and ourselves third. We are called to love as He loves, to walk as He walks, to be perfect as He is perfect. It may seem hard but in reality it is not because God has not left us alone. He is right here with us. His Holy Spirit comes and lives in us when we accept Him as our LORD and Savior.
God does not change. His Word is eternal. He is love and wants us to be love in this world.
Now I know how the world looks at us Christians. Just remember this: when we stand before God on the day that we die in this world, we will give an account of the life that we have lived. Do not worry about how the world judges you. The world is not in control. God is on His throne and He is our Judge. He is all that matters.
We may not physically touch God but we do spiritually because of His Spirit. Those who do not know God will pay for their unbelief. Just as we will be rewarded for our belief. We have to overcome our lack of faith and be overcome by our faith.
We need a revival of our faith. We have to stop listening to the loud voices of the world and listen to the peaceful voice of God.
We need to know God with every part of our being. To be on fire, letting His Holy Spirit roar in us like a lion. We have to stand firm in our faith and not let the world tell us that we are wrong. Brothers and sisters, do not listen to what the world tells you. God is love and in Him there is not darkness. He is the light of the world. His path is the narrow way. His Word is the truth. His life is our life. His goal is our goal.
5 This is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you: God is light; in Him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we claim to have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all[b] sin. (1 John 1:5-7)
We are called by God and for God to become His holy children. When we accept His call to faith, we have to follow Him in all of His ways to show our faith. Every night, Henry and I ask God that His light would shine out of us to show others He is the light. It is a powerful prayer to desire to be used by God. In essence, we are asking GOD to mold us into being His light to show that we believe in Him and to be used by Him so that others will want to know Him. As believers we are to bring Christ to the world. Not in a building i.e. church, but actually being the building of the church, not hiding our faith but letting our faith be seen. Some people say that we should not show our faith. God says shout it out. As believers, we are to be disciples of God, to teach others His amazing love. And when we walk with Him He will change us. Let us stop looking to the world for answers but let us look to God for all the answers. We may not understand what is going on in our lives or in the world but we have to trust and hope in the LORD. God will use every situation to show His love even the hard things. Our lives should be bound in hope. Hope of what is to come; hope that no matter how hard the journey is that God is right here with us in all that is going on. And when we walk in His light as He is the light, we will grow to be perfect as the Father is perfect. His path is illuminated by Him because He is the light of the world. In our faith, we are to walk in His light and be His light to shine brightly for all the world to see. We do not hide our faith but in every area of our lives we are to live our faith. What we say or what we do, what we read or what we watch, what we hear or what we want should all come from our desire to want what God wants, to do what God does and to be what God is.
8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make Him out to be a liar and His Word is not in us.(1 John 1:8-10)
Are we sinners? You bet we are. There is only one human who was without sin, JESUS. He took all our sins upon Himself and was nailed to the cross. He lived a life to show us how God wants us to live our lives. God wants us to come to Him and confess our sins and to make Him the LORD and Savior of our lives. God wants us just as we are. We come to Him and tell Him that we are sinners and we ask His forgiveness. And the cross proves our forgiveness. Just look at how God opens His arms and calls us to Him. Look at the cross and see your sins. Every strip on Jesus’ back was caused by our sins. Every nail in His body was the piercing of our sins upon His heart. Each and every time we sin, we are responsible for Jesus’ suffering.
But oh the amazing love of GOD! He loves every one of us because He created us! He is waiting for all His creations to come to Him and to make Him the LORD and Savior of our lives. He will not leave us in our sinful state when we come to Him and put Him first. He will fill us with His Holy Spirit and teach us and change us into all that we were created to be.
My sisters and brothers, we are God’s children and we are called to live a life of hope and faith I God. To believe in the One that He sent to teach us. To learn to walk in the way of the LORD by reading and learning from His Word. We are to put God first in every area of our lives. We are to walk in the light as He is the light.
If you are not walking with GOD, you are walking with the evil one. There are only two choices in life: GOD or the devil. GOD is good and the devil is evil. Choose this day whom you will serve: other gods or the GOD of all. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.
