Remaining In Christ

 

DEVOTION

THE 1^ST LETTER OF JOHN

REMAINING IN CHRIST

1 John 2:20-23

20 But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth.   21 I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth. 22 Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist — he denies the Father and the Son. 23 No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.

NIV

Once again, John makes the point about false doctrines. The reason for this letter is not to establish a new doctrine, but to point out they and we know the truth. We know that Jesus is the Christ, He is God who came to earth in the form of man to be our Savior. We know that Jesus, being the Christ is the only one able to take away our sins. We cannot be convinced otherwise by any false doctrines. Anyone who looks to anything or anyone else is a liar and the truth is not in them. What we have to be careful of is in our daily living as a believer in Jesus as the Christ. We would never deny He is the Christ and that our salvation is in Him. But we must also trust him for our daily living. If we could be sinless now that we are saved, that would be wonderful, but the fact is we are not sinless. Sure, we try our very best to remain as pure as possible and we do not go out of our way looking for a way to sin, but sin still finds us. Impatience has a way to sneak in from time to time. But perhaps the most difficult thing is to rid ourselves of self-reliance. When we start thinking we can keep ourselves pure, truly pure, faultless, then we are in deep trouble. When we allow spiritual pride to have its way with us, are we forgetting about the Christ? We can do nothing apart from Jesus. Nothing means not a single thing. We have to rely on Jesus for every aspect of our lives. If we exclude him from one single aspect of our lives, is that a form of denial, therefore, self-reliance? We hear some of these silver-tongued liars that use the media to spread their non-truths, using the word, God, but never do we hear them talk about Jesus. Their messages sound good, and they attract large crowds, who may be in the process of being deceived. We cannot pay attention to them because we know the truth, we know Jesus is the Christ and we look to Him for our life, both our eternal life and our daily life. This is the strength of the local church and a local shepherd who guards the flock given to him by God. During the days of the apostles, they served as shepherds, of guardians of the young churches. But that mantle has been passed on to the local shepherd of today. This shepherd now writes, so to speak, so no lies come from the truth because the people in his flock know the truth and he continues to guide toward the truth. Jesus said that he is the truth, the way, and the life and that no man comes to the Father except through Him. So we live in Christ, we remain in the truth and we need to live by that truth, always trusting, always looking to Jesus.