Tag: christianity

Our Salvation Is Quite Sure

My favorite of all the apostles is John, “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” I love his Gospel, the three epistles that he wrote, and of course,  Revelation.

There are a couple of things I love about John’s writings:

  1. He reminds his readers that he was an eyewitness to Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.
  2. He clearly sets out the evidence for Jesus’ divinity.
  3. He focuses, particularly in the epistles, on the love of God.
  4. He reveals the power and purpose of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers.
  5. He provides believers with an assurance of salvation.

It is this last point that I want to write about today.

Early in the history of the Christian faith, deceivers had come into the church who taught that one had to achieve sinless perfection to be saved. John wrote his first epistle to combat this heresy. The same type of heresy has crept into many legalistic denominations even today. By outwardly following the rules, such people claim to be without sin. But as John writes:

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 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 (NIV).

John here provides assurance that the fact that the believer sometimes sins does not negate their salvation, because Jesus is faithful and forgives our sin. One of the definitions of assurance on Dictionary.com is “full confidence; freedom from doubt; certainty.” Throughout this epistle, John provides further assurance that those who trust in Jesus can be assured of their salvation even though they are not sinless and perfect.

The word “know” appears 42 times in this short epistle.

John wants to make sure believers know that God loves them and that they can rely on His promise of salvation. In each of the chapters of the epistle, John includes his assurance:

I am writing to you, dear children,
   because your sins have been forgiven on account of his name.
I am writing to you, fathers,
   because you know him who is from the beginning.
I am writing to you, young men,
   because you have overcome the evil one.

1 John 2:12-13 (NIV).

“Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep 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. The one who keeps God’s commands lives 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 (NIV).

“If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.”

1 John 4:15-16 (NIV).

“I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.”

1 John 5:13-14 (NIV).

None of us is perfect and completely sinless. If we were, we would not need a Savior. But we do need Him, and we thrive best knowing that He is faithful in His promise of salvation for those who believe.

John does not advocate living a life in which we sin ‘willy-nilly’ simply because we know we can be forgiven.

Now don’t get me wrong. Those who truly believe in Jesus, and trust in Him for salvation, will desire to keep God’s commands. His Spirit living in our hearts will help us to overcome the temptations of the world and to love as He has commanded.

You may be struggling today with worries that you are not good enough, or that God will give up on you and you will lose your salvation. But remember – God is faithful in His promises and He has promised eternal life to all who believe in Jesus and allow His love to live in them. He has not hidden the truth from us but has made Himself known through His Son and the witness of the apostles so that we can be assured of our place in His Kingdom. Your salvation is sure.

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Contemplating the Crib

When we think about Jesus, when we start to contemplate the crib, we explode into joy over what we have seen. We inaugurate a convincing of His second coming. You might say that we suddenly adjust to a Jesus who just drops in on us.

“And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory.”

Col. 3:4, NLT

Jesus anticipates that His visits to earth, will start to bear fruit. There will be many who will be validated to step up into this place of salvation. But many of us will be part of many others who are involved in this sharing. Jesus has come, and all of us enter into something quite exceptional.

But this is all a future event, it hasn’t happened yet, but we do think about when He will return. But this is not an occasional, fleeting awareness. But we are confident we do understand that His return alters everything. All of a sudden, we are launched into real and eternal promises. These critical assignments coming from this world, will never take the place of being in God‘s purposes.

Paul is wrapped up with a deep and profound understanding of things that are on the threshold.  He is the apostle of the aware. He seems to sizzle with understanding that progresses out of his initiative and creative effort.

But Paul develops, after he sees, a careful sense of certain things that are moving. But he knows what He has seen, and he insists that others join him in this.

This is why we must procure this awareness. To operate in the realm of Paul will be worth our weight in “celestial gold.”  Things are rich and fecund, and they wait in a exceptional awareness. As Paul follows, so we follow. In the Heavenly places, we are being counted as being faithful and quite true.

Confession – A Villanelle

Walking Toward His Light

This poem is written in the “villanelle* form. I wrote it as a reminder to myself of how hard the darkness of depression can be so that I don’t lose my compassion for those in my world who are struggling to find the Light. But it is also a reminder that the Light of Christ does shine in that darkness, however faintly, and will never be extinguished. If you feel oppressed by the darkness, seek His Light.

Confession

The light shines in the darkness
Faintly I see His light
My need I will confess
Toward the light I press
Keeping hope in my sight
The light shines in the darkness
Despair my soul’s distress
Entangled in the night
My need I will confess
His grace I will profess
Giving me the strength to fight
The light shines in the darkness
I feel anguish oppress
Crushing with all its might
My need I will confess
Feeling His love’s caress
Compassion burning bright
The light shines in the darkness
      My need I will confess

__________________________________________

* vil·la·nelle, [vil-uh-nel]

noun, Prosody

a short poem of fixed form, written in tercets, usually five in number,

followed by a final quatrain, all being based on two rhymes.
 
 
 

Check out Linda’s site @ anotherfearlessyear.net

 

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Outside the Darkness Are Certain Colors

A Poem of Certain Colors

Living in darkness
no color I see
a hint of deep blue
maybe red–
but no, only blackness

Tears flood the darkness
trying to wash away
the blackness
to reveal the color
I know must be near

I’ve heard stories
of vibrant yellow sunshine
smiling green trees
happiness in rainbows
streaming across
a pale blue sky

But in the darkness
these colors
are but myths
draped in blackness
obscured by
the pain I feel

Then suddenly
the Light comes
dim colors
revealed to my eyes
for my heart to see

The Light
drawn by my tears
came to wash away
the blackness
tears alone
could never heal

The colors of
my world brighten
day by day
as the Light illuminates
the truth of colors
that were always
just outside the darkness

“Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali,
the way to the sea, along the Jordan,
Galilee of the Gentiles—
the people living in darkness
have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of the shadow of death
a light has dawned.”

Matthew 4:15-16 (NIV).

This poem was originally posted on my blog, Linda Kruschke’s Blog, about my own struggles with major depression and the Light who has helped me see the beautiful colors depression had obscured.