1John 2:29 - Our (re)Birth.Right

"If you may have come to know that He is righteous, you [all] know that also that every the [one] doing the righteousness out of Him has been born."

-Litmus tests - John here gives us another, another way we can know if someone - if we truly belong to Jesus.  #1 - Confessing our sins.  #2 - Keeping His commands/Word.  #3 - Loving your brother.  #4 - Confessing the Son.  And now this, #5 - Doing righteousness.  It is broader perhaps than keeping God’s Word.  It is a heart and a desire and a readiness to do what is right, at the ready, in season and out of season.  We don’t run from it.  We don’t hide from it.  We don’t shirk from it.  And it flows from a true knowledge of the character of God, of Who God is, what He is like.

-John has aready affirmed that God is light (1John 1.5-7, 2.8-11), a recurring theme.  And here John affirms that God is righteous.  Not the first mention - this is another recurring theme (1John 1.9, 2.1).  But in other words, God does everything right.  He always does the right thing.  No rule breaking here.  No cutting corners, no short-sheeting the bed or anything else.  No compromise or shadiness whatsoever.  We’re not talking about being a lemon-sucking joyless prude who is taking all the fun out of life.  But fun ≠ rule-breaking.  The fun and freedom and thrill we may experience when we are doing something which is not right is 100% fleshy.  But it is possible to live a life of joy and adventure and still do what is right.  Because fundamentally we are talking about being like our Father in heaven, a deep heartfelt desire to be like Dad, Who happens to be the happiest Being in the universe AND always does what is right.  This goes hand in hand with the Light.  In Him, not even a glimmer of shadow.  In the Father of lights there is no shifting shadow, no variation whatsoever (James 1.17).  100% light, 100% right, 24/7.

-Of course, to have been justified in Christ means that in our Father's eyes we already are having done everything right (yes, breathe that sigh of relief!!!).  But this must (should) play out in our day-to-day.  True statement: it is always right to do the right thing.  And the heart which has truly come to know that this is what the Father is really like will inevitably, invariably want to do the same.  The heart which has been truly (re)begotten by our heavenly Father will want to be like Him, will want to and strive to do (it)(all of it!) right, just like Him.  This is indeed our (re)birthright, to be AND to do right.  It doesn’t mean you never mess up, it doesn’t mean you never sin - but it does involve making it right when you don’t manage to do it right.  And, what's more - we have a Helper!  But this is another one of the ways which we can know that someone has truly come to know the Father thru Jesus.  It is always right - and good - and god-ly - to do what is right.

1John 2:28 - Ready and waiting...?

"And now, little children, be remaining in Him, in order that if He should appear, we should have confidence and we should not be ashamed from Him in the coming of Him."

-We have a part to play in all of this.  And it’s more than merely naming the name of Jesus.  It’s more than just raising your hand or going forward in a meeting.  It’s more that simply being baptized and walking away with your fire insurance policy intact.  We’re not just talking about a get-out-of-jail free card that we pull out when the chips are down and we’ve exhausted all our other options.  Be remaining in Him, John says.  Be remaining, abiding in Jesus.  It's the ol’ vine and the branches (John 15.1-6), and Jesus is the Vine.  All of us branches, our goal, our primary job is, remain vitally connected to the Vine, to Jesus, drawing our life-giving fruit-bearing sustenance from Him.

-There are two sides to this coin.  There is God’s part.  He creates and secures the connection, right?  He connects us to Jesus, puts us in Jesus when we truly believe, when we put our trust in Him.  For those who have truly trusted in Jesus, that connection is secure.  And of course He brings the increase as we do the abiding thing.  But that’s where there’s this other side of the coin, the part we have to play.  Abide in Me, Jesus says (John 15.4).  And John repeats it here - be abiding in Him.  Any relationship must be maintained by both parties.  And for our part, we know full well when we are not doing our part.  The upshot of that is shame.  Isn’t that what happens when we get caught in the act?  If the Lord were to show up unannounced (which, by the way, He told us He is in fact going to do - Luke 12.40), and were to catch us in the middle of our lukewarm devotion and uber-distracted busy-ness with so many unnecessary things, would we not be ashamed?  Surely this is one of the reasons so many believers are not more eager for His return, is it not?  Sure, our eagerness meter goes up whenever brokenness rears its ugly mug, but how about the rest of our days?  Are we generally and increasingly ready and waiting for the return of our Bridegroom?  Or are we not playing around, making mudpies in a slum, settling for and scraping by on cotton candy, surviving on spiritual scraps, hurrying about our daily lives, work and school and friends and entertainment and barely a few minutes for our breathtakingly glorious Savior?  Nary a whiff of the supernatural.  I wonder how many of us might be willing to settle for just shooting the Lord a text?  We don’t even talk to each other as much anymore, do we?  Not railing on technology, mind you.  But isn’t our devotion too often more of just a tame humdrum monotony, while the multitudes outside looking askance at Christ, hungry for a reason to come crowding in, are left to wonder what’s all the hubbub about?  What’s the big deal?

-Jesus says be cold or hot (Revelation 3.15).  But not lukewarm.  Not life like this.  Church, are we hot and boiling?  Am I hot and boiling (cf Romans 12.11)?  Am I leaving it all out there, full-on and full-out for Jesus?  Little children, are we abiding?  Am I abiding in Christ with full-on dependence and devotion and desperation, fully aware that apart from Him there is nothing I can do, and that just one day in His courts is better than a thousand anywhere else (Psalm 84.10), that in His presence alone there is fulness of joy (Psalm 16.11)?  Do I truly know this?  Am I living into this truth?  Surely Lord, You are the air I breathe, and I’m lost without You...  But how desperate am I...?

1John 2:27 - Everything we need...(?) Exactly.

"And you [all], the anointing which you received from Him, it is remaining in you and you are not having a need in order that anyone may be teaching you, but rather as the anointing of Him is teaching you about everything and it is true and it is not a lie, and just as it taught you, you [all] are remaining in it."

-As we have already seen, we all, all of us who have believed in Christ, have an anointing, this special gift of God’s Spirit.  And this anointing, God’s Spirit, is our constant Teacher, always present and accounted for, our very own, complementary, personal in-home Tutor, comes to our house every day - never leaves, in fact!  He is with us (remains IN us!) always and forever (John 14.16), always guiding us into truth - again, that’s what He does (John 16.13).  Whatever He hears, He share with us.  Such that - according to John - even with all these deceiving antichrists running around we believers do not actually need anyone else to teach us about what is true.  We have THE Truth-Speaker always living right here in our hearts, teaching us about everything, what is true and what isn’t, and all we really need is to (slow down long enough to) listen to what He is saying.

-I suppose a valid question for us might be then, are we hearing from Him?  Are our ears tuned to the Spirit?  Are we taking the time to listen?  Do we even care to?    The Lord does indeed seem quite intent on urging His people to listen - cf Matthew 11.15, 13.9, 13.43; Revelation 2.7 et al.  But are the competing voices of the world and the flesh and the devil drowning Him out in our lives?  I wonder if the volume on the 70-inch flat screen of our hi-definition lives is turned up so high that we have a hard time hearing Him?  Sometimes it's simply that the Lord's blessings can make us feel less desperate for Him, and it might take a little "distress" to bring us to that point of turning and listening for His voice (cf Deuteronomy 4.30, 13.3).  Some refer to Him as the "Still-Small-Voice" - and it doesn't take much to drown Him out, really.

-Rest.  Solitude.  Silence.  Wilderness experiences - these were regular habits of our Lord when He walked on earth (Matthew 14.13; Mark 1.35, 6.31; Luke 5.16, 6.12, 9.28, John 6.15).  My Bible inserts the word ‘often’.  It was ongoing, constant.  Regularly (daily?), our Lord was getting away - to pray, to listen, to meditate, to feast, to commune, to rest.  Would we not need this just as much, if not more?  The hardest part, perhaps, is simply carving out a time - and (finding) a place.  A place of quiet rest.

-But the fact of the matter is, all we who have believed in Jesus have been given everything (and exactly what) we need to live a life of godliness which is pleasing to our heavenly Father (2Peter 1.3).  Everything.  We.  Need.  All of it!  (Wait - do we really believe that?)  Starting first and foremost with His Spirit, Who is with us forever to guide us in the way of truth and away from error and all that is false.  Indeed, all the resources of heaven have been placed at our disposal, if we would only avail ourselves of them.  If we will only... slow.... down..... and listen.......  Shhh - what's that?  Speak, Lord - your servant is listening... (1Samuel 3.10)

1John 2:26 - The Pernicious Primrose Path (and those who would lead you down it)

"These I wrote to you [all] about the [ones] deceiving you."

-Most sins which we commit against another person are right out there for them to see.  Anger, impatience, unkindness, selfishness, etc.  But if I deceive you, you don’t know it.  Is there any more pernicious, treacherous form of unrighteousness then when I am going to try my level best to convince you that you can trust that which is false, that my lie is true?  That you can trust me (when in fact you cannot)?  I am leading you down the primrose path, probably a friend, or person of influence, and you are going to trust my word.  You come to trust me, yet you will regret it, cuz not only do I not have your back I am going to stab you in it.  Yes, we call these people backstabbers.  And it's a long, sinister blade they use, cuz it actually goes all they way to your heart.  They fundamentally wound your trust, and can ultimately destroy it.  In the process they have quite possibly convinced you to make some unwise decision, a fateful choice which you may regret.  It’s double damage, especially because trust is not easily rebuilt.

-Trust is indeed a precious commodity.  Aristotle said, ‘Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope".  As we grow older, we give out trust more begrudgingly - or should?  Life teaches us that, sadly, people cannot be trusted.  Even Jesus was careful about putting His trust in people (John 2.23-25).  He knows our thoughts, everything that is in our hearts, our every thought, our motives, our intentions.  Are you aware of how Scripture over and over again states that He know our thoughts?  Here are just a few passages - Acts 1.24, 15.8; Matthew 9.4, 12.25; Luke 6.8, 9.47; John 6.64; cf Genesis 6.5!  And our heart is deceitful above all else (Jeremiah 17.9)!  Deliver my soul, O Lord, from lying lips, from a deceitful tongue (Psalm 120.2).  Such a great prayer.  How significant it is when Jesus can’t help but announce publicly when He first encounters Nathanael that here is one in whom there is NO deceit!  That what Jesus says - John 1.47.  How blessed is the man in whose spirit there is NO deceit (Psalm 32.2).  Truly, this is to be a hallmark of God’s people, a people who tell no lies, no deceitful tongues will be found in their mouths (Zephaniah 3.13).  In the meantime, in the world, the default position of man IS deceit.  Deceiving and being deceived (2Timothy 3.13) and increasingly so, everyone deceives his neighbor (Jeremiah 9.5) and through deceit, they refuse to know me, declares the Lord (Jeremiah 9.6).  They deceive themselves, and they might not even know it!  What a tragic state, this.  Sadly it can even be a fallback position for believers, and particularly for professing-but-not-really-believing "believers".

-So John is writing these true believers - and us - to warn us about these deceivers.  There are definitely deceivers.  They are out there.  Misleaders.  Charlatans.  In John’s context, these are ones who have gone out from the assembly of believers, who are now saying that Jesus is not the way, that He is not the Son of God.  And as is the case with most rebellion, it loves company.  These anti-christs will no doubt try to get you to sympathize with them, go with them, to join in their apostasy.  But they don’t really care about you.  They do NOT have your back.  They are just trying to reinforce their own shaky position.  And if they can you get to go along with them, they will feel better about themselves.  Many of these deceivers, so-called antichrists, have gone out into the world, ravenous wolves.  Somebody needs to warn the flock to watch out!  That’s precisely what John is doing.  Be careful, brothers!  

1John 2:25 - Magnifying the Magnificent Promise(s of the original Promise Keeper)

"And this is the promise which He promised to us, the life eternal."

-He made a promise.  GOD made a promise.  Promises by their very definition are made to be kept.  It is (supposed to be) the assurance of what someone. Will. Do.  Now with people we observe that promise-breaking is more the norm.  We experience it early on - "but Dad, you promised...!"  We grow up and cease to be surprised when someone breaks a promise.  Disappointed perhaps.  Definitely so, in the case of bigger promises - like marriage vows, okay so for example.  But it doesn’t get any bigger than this one here.  Not your average run-of-the-mill promise, this.  Something more is in play here, something way more, out-of-this-world more.  This is a God-promise - and our God is a Promise Keeper.  He is the First and Foremost, the original Promise Keeper.  Not one word ever fails of any of His good promises (1Kings 8.56).  Not ever.  When God makes a promise, He is tied to it.  He cannot lie (Titus 1.2).  He is totally unable to not be true to Himself and to His Word.  If He said it, you can take it to the bank.  Always and forever.

-So here John brings us face-to-face with another facet of the the Word which was spoken to his readers, which they had heard from the beginning - God’s promise of eternal life.  Yes, they should love one another.  But even before that, they should believe.  They should steadfastly continue to trust in Jesus, believe IN Him, knowing for sure that God has promised eternal life to anyone - whosoever believes in Jesus.  John 3.16 - this is what we believe, the crux of it all.  And this perhaps is God’s most magnificent promise - eternal life.  Whoever believes in Jesus will most assuredly receive God’s promise of eternal life.  Again, you can bank on it.  Because the God of the Word always keeps His Word.  Always.  There will never be a single promise which God will not keep.  

-His magnificent promises - they are many.  These are the bedrock of our lives, the sure foundation, our anchors in the midst of life’s inexorable - and sometimes catastrophic - storms.  I am with you always.  I will never leave you.  I will fully supply all your needs.  I am working all things together for good.  I will answer you.  I will direct your path.  I am coming back.  My love will last forever.  I love YOU!  Yes, some of these are conditional, they are conditioned upon our faith.  Trust in Me, call to Me, ask Me, believe in Me.  But believe it or not, the key to unleashing the unbelievable promises of God in my life is not how much I believe.  It is the object of our faith which makes all the difference.  I do not need bigger faith per se - my view of God needs to grow.  We put our tiny mustard seed of faith in a BIG God, Who is faithful (forever) and Who is able (way more than we can even imagine).  And He made a promise - eternal life - which He intends to keep.  He can do no other.  This new unending life becomes mine the moment I believe, and will Never. Ever. End. Forever. Thank You, thank You, thank You, Father...

1John 2:24 - Is it in you?

"[That] which you [all] heard from the beginning, in you let it be remaining.  If in you should be remaining what from the beginning you [all] heard, also you in the Son and in the Father you will remain."

-What you heard from the beginning was God’s Word, the words of Jesus - so, a command here, and I do have a choice: let those words of Jesus be remaining/abiding in you.  Recall the words of Jesus: "If you remain in My Word, then you are truly disciples of Mine (John 8.31); you do not have His Word remaining in you, because you do not believe Him Whom He sent (John 5.38); if anyone does not remain in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up and they gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burned. [But] if you abide in Me and My Words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you (John 15.6-7); remain in My love - if you keep My commands you will remain in My love (John 15.9).

-Clearly our Lord puts a huge premium on the idea of remaining in Him, in His love, in His Words.  And there are two ways to look at it, I suppose.  Two sides of the same coin.  The remaining is something we do.  It is a command, which is fundamentally an appeal to our will.  We have a choice.  Let it be remaining.  It is on us, our responsibility.  We devote ourselves to His Word and take pains to absorb ourselves in it, we learn it and memorize it and carefully apply it, turning not to the right or the left.  And so there are people who will apply themselves to this whole remaining thing, to remaining in God’s Word(s), and you will of course see it playing out in their lives in the form of a visible life and walk of faith.  We will describe them as faithful.  And that is clearly more of the language here.  But the remaining is also something which God does, which plays out in the life of the person whose heart is truly trusting in Christ.  The abiding/remaining heart abides.  This is broadly referred to as the perseverance of the saints, describing that life which has been regenerated by Christ, made new as the Holy Spirit applied God’s Word to their heart and brought forth brand new eternal life.  Regeneration.  Metapmorphosis.  Old things gone, all things made new (2Corinthians 5.17) - for any and all who are (having put their trust) in Christ.  The person thus transformed is a completely new creation.  And this change is permanent.  Forever.  They will remain forever.  You and I and all God’s people will see that their faith will persevere for the rest of their lives.  The Word which they believed will prove to be that which they believe forever.  IF they truly did believe.

-”Take care, brothers, watch out that there will not be found in any of you an unbelieving heart which (does not remain but rather) stands away from the living God (in unbelief)...” (Hebrews 3.12)

-Yes, there is a camp of those who will insist that a person can unbelieve, can undo this regeneration by choosing to no longer remain in the Word.  Others - this writer included - will maintain that "unregeneration" is not a thing, that it not possible and that such a "used-to-be-a believer" never truly believed to begin with.  That verse in Hebrews alone lands people on both sides of this discussion.  Suffice it to say, what both camps will prescribe, and what matters most is that right now, in this moment, such a person, any person must now (choose to) remain in His Word.  No matter where you (or anyone else) might think you may have been in this whole believe-and-remain thing, right now, simply believe.  Be believing.  Present tense, Continuing action in the present.  Now and continuously.  That is precisely what John says here, nothing more, nothing less.  And the person thus remaining in God’s Word will genuinely be that person who is remaining in both the Father and the Son.

-But what John is really getting at here is what he already aluded to back in 1John 2.7, the new/old command to love one another.   These words of Jesus, which these believers had heard from the beginning, John is saying that THESE words from John 13.33 specifically need to be remaining in them, remaining in them not as guests, as words which they had heard but did not heed, but rather remaining in them as permanent residents, as family members, as words which influenced them and defined who they were, words which colored their thoughts and words and deeds.  Love one another.  These were the words which they had heard from the beginning.  These were the proof of the pudding.  Loving one another - remaining steeped in these words - goes hand in hand with remaining in the the Son and the Father (and of course those Two go hand in hand as well - there is no abiding in just one of Them...).  The person who is continuing to love their brother is one whom you can know is in the Father and the Son.  Is it in you?

1John 2:23 - What if I told you that I am a poached egg...?

"Every [one] denying the Son neither has the Father, the [one] confessing the Son also has the Father."

-The ultimate litmus test, this then.  Jesus - what say you?  Who is He?  Who is He to you?  Do you know Him?  Do you know who He is?  John puts is rather succinctly - if you deny Jesus, if you agree with that spirit of antichrist and say that He is NOT the Son of God, the One God sent to bring us back to Him, if you are not IN Him, if you don’t have Him, then you don’t have the Father either.  It's a package deal, people.  If, however, I am confessing the Son, if I am agreeing with what God’s Word says about Him, with what He says about Himself, then I also have the Father.  It really quite simple.  It doesn’t require some advanced degree.  It is not necessary to understand Greek or Hebrew.  It’s not necessary to know where you stand on dispensations or Calvin vs Arminius.  It all comes down to one point...

-So then, it all begins with Jesus.  You start with Him, again because He is the Way.  He is the only Way back to God.  His is the only Name given under heaven by which we can be saved from eternal separation from God.  There is no other.  There are not many ways to God, as some insist, many paths to the same goal.  Jesus said it quite plainly.  He said, "I am the Way... no one comes to the Father BUT THRU ME" (Jn 14.6).  So that’s what He said.  The question then becomes, what do I say about what He said?  That is THE question, for each of us, the question of questions.  Jesus - what say you?

I love how C.S. Lewis puts it in Mere Christianity: 

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

1John 2:22 - The Ancient Cacophony of Rebels

"Who is the liar if not the [one] denying that Jesus is not the Christ?  This is the antichrist, the [one] denying the Father and the Son."

-Jesus is not the Way.  He is not the Truth or the Life.  He is not Messiah, the Promised One.  He is not Who He said He is.  He did not rise from the dead.  He is not the Son of God.  He did not even die on the cross.  Step right up and get in line, the really long line - of liars.  Those poor, pathetic deceived deceivers who throughout the centuries have gone to great lengths to deny Christ and to deny the truth about Who He is.  To be fair, there are many, no doubt, who have staked out their spot in this line who are rather more deceive-ees than deceive-ers, not so much liars who are out to deliberately twist the truth as they are blind puppets, unwitting minions of the father of lies.

-Yes, this is the antichrist.  They are against Christ.  Anyone who denies that Jesus is the Christ, this is the antichrist.  They join an ancient cacophony of rebels.  Come to perpetuate the frantic assault on Truth, spitting in the face of the very One Who died to save their soul, this gentle and humble One Whose yoke is easy and burden is light and Who alone can fill the infinite abyss in their heart.  Still, the war persists.

-They deny the Son because ultimately they deny the Father.  They are denying them both, desperately engaged in that age-old battle for mastery of their domain, such as it is.  Living in denial about Who made them and the nature of their accountability towards Him.  Living in denial as to the truth about Him, His eternal power, His divine nature, His breathtaking goodness.  They put anything and practically everything else in His place, idolaters all.  And surely, we all are they.  There but for the grace of God goes each one of us.  We all like sheep have gone astray in our hearts (cf Isaiah 53.6), strayed from Shepherd of our souls, the Good Shepherd, Who alone can lead us beside still waters and make us lie down in green pastures and runneth over our cup.  Every want filled (cf Psalm 23.1-5).  True satisfaction.  It's all found in Him, the Author of life and Maker of our souls.

1John 2:21 - The Beauty of Over-exposure?

"I didn’t write to you because you are not having come to know the truth but rather because you are having come to know it and because every lie is not out of the truth."

-John’s readers know the truth.  He is writing to believers who know the truth.  He says he is not writing to them because they do not know the truth - in other words, he is not writing in order to chastise or correct them.  This letter is for their encouragement - and ours, those of us who have also believed thru this Word (from John and others) passed down to us.  We are having come to know the truth.  We came to understand it and embrace it at some point in the past, God regenerated us and gave us new life and new understanding at that time, and that life, that knowledge, that truth, remains with and in us still today.

-No lie is of the truth.  Again, there is an age old battle, a clash of opposites.  The truth and the lie.  The lie is not the complete absence of truth (in the same way that darkness is the absence of light).  There can be some element of truth in any lie.  In fact, the most effective and diabolical deceptions contains some element of truth.  The preposterous is much harder to swallow.  But make it plausible, and the masses may be fooled.  This is certainly the tack of the enemy.  He did it in the garden.  He tried it in the wilderness.  Use some truth, but twist it, or shade it somehow.  And yes, sometimes simply flat out contradict it.  But herein lies the reason why it becomes so important to know the truth.  To become so familiar with it, to let it become so ingrained in you that you can readily and easily spot a counterfeit.  That’s how they train bank tellers.  They (only) expose (and overexpose) them to good bills, to the true ones.  Over exposure perhaps is not the way to go in film photography, or on the beach, but it is definitely the way to go with truth.  Over, not under.  You know the truth, John says.  Good for you.  Let’s go over (it again), let’s go over-board, let’s let the indwelling Spirit help us double down and learn it again, take us further up and deeper in.

1John 2:20 - Commissioned. By. God.

"And you [all] have an anointing from the holy [One] and all [of] you are having come to know."

-All y'all, you have an anointing, John says, a wondrous heavenly anointing.  A divine appointment.  Not a time-and-place location but a commission - a calling.  In ancient Israel, on special occasions, the prophet, God’s representative, would come and pour (or smear) some special sweet-smelling oil or ointment on the new king or prophet or priest or altar, signifying God’s choice and formal installment of that person (or place)(Exodus 30.30-31, 40.9-11; 1Samuel 10.1; 1Kings 1.34).  Sometimes this anointing was accompanied by the gift of the Holy Spirit (cf 1Samuel 16.12-13, Acts 10.38 - Isaiah 11.2, Matthew 3.16), Who then provided divine enabling for that role, that work for which this person had been commissioned, chosen and set apart.

-But in this case, all of you, all you who have fully trusted in Jesus, have been thus anointed BY THE HOLY ONE HIMSELF.  Not some emissary.  Some lackey.  God Himself, He did it.  In this case, the anointing is not accompanied by the Spirit - IT IS the Spirit!  God chose you Himself and He personally gave you His Spirit and set you apart, totally set you up, with His Spirit, to serve Him.  Commissioned by God.  But this gift is not just about giftedness for serving - it is also for knowledge.  You know, John says.  All of you - you know.  You already know, you know the truth.  This is why the Spirit came, this is one of the reasons the Father sent Him, poured Him out at Pentecost into the heart and life of every person who fully trusts in Christ - to guide believers into truth (John 16.13).  The Spirit teaches all things to those who have believed (John 14.26).  This is what He does - helps us know what is true.  If you have believed, if you have put your trust in Jesus, you have His Spirit (cf Romans 8.9).  He is living in your heart, from the moment you trusted in Jesus, and there’s no getting rid of Him (2Corinthians 1.22, Ephesians 1.13)!  He is the One Who provides the constant deep seated heart assurance that we are truly sons and daughters of our heavenly Father (Romans 8.15-16).  This gift, which all believers receive (Acts 2.38), is permanent.  Irrevocable (Romans 11.29).  Such that we can be sure that those who are now opposing us never had it.  Whatever they appeared to have, it was falsified.  Just a fake ID.  A cheap knockoff.  They never had the Spirit, never REALLY knew the truth.  But we know, those of us who have trusted in Christ for the forgiveness of sins.  We know what’s true.  Next verse...

1John 2:19 - The Ultimate Betrayal

"Out of us they went, but rather they were not out of us.  For if they were out of us they would have remained with us.  But rather in order that should be revealed that they are not all out of us."

-Some of these antichrists, these ones who are opposing Christ and us, they used to be one of us.  They used to name the name of Jesus!  They used to (say they) believe, they actually (looked like they) were trusting in Jesus.  And now they are not only no longer with us, they are against us, and against our Savior!  How can this be?

-We're talking about betrayal.  It's as old as the first family.  Cain and Abel.  And tragically, hasn’t betrayal in all its forms become so widespread as to create a pervasive crisis of trust in our day and age?  Divorce is epidemic, the faithful are fickle, and corruption runs rampant.  People and leaders and corporations and governments all say one thing and do another, hiding their transgressions and subterfuge behind a veil of lies and machiavellian excuses in a pitiful pursuit of profit and power and image management.  People we trusted, who we should be able to trust, letting us down.  Creating a generation of wounded, disappointed hero-less cynics who trust nobody, unable to trust even...?

-And in this verse we have the ultimate betrayal.  Those who were our friends, our family even, have not only gone away from us, they are now opposing us!  They were one of us!  How could this happen?  Perhaps you have felt the sting of deep personal betrayal.  Someone you loved, who professed love for you, who belonged to your family or group.  Perhaps a spouse even.  They said they loved you.  They made a promise before God and witnesses!  They went through the motions of devotion, of belonging.  They appeared to care, to belong.  And then they went away in their heart and left altogether.  And they turned on you.  Betrayal.  Stabbed in the back.  Double-crossing liars, is what they are.  You feel misled, deceived.  The ultimate deception.  Your trust is shredded, it was misplaced.  How could anyone do this?

-You know, Jesus Himself was betrayed - one of those He loved, who He Himself chose, who He taught, a close friend and member of His inner circle - Judas not only left the group, he was the one who deliberately and with malice and forethought carried out the plan to hand his Friend over to His enemies.  He blew up the group!  And he did it for money.  This person who betrayed you, who dealt you a wound like no other, so deep - they didn’t just leave.  Now they are opposing you!  They are your enemy.  The world doesn’t make any sense - how could anyone do this to another person - much less one who names the Name of Jesus?  Jesus knows the depth of betrayal.  So does our heavenly Father.  Did not the first parents - who He had made and so wonderfully blessed - throw Him over for a piece of fruit?  Did not a legion of His angelic messengers abandon Him and choose to reign in hell?  John knows the feeling too, no doubt.  And what he says is that in the case of those who left the family of God and who are now opposing us, they were never one of us.  They were never really saved.  Anyone can name the Name of Jesus - but it is the one whose faith endures to the end who is really saved.  It is a LONG obedience.  It is a faith which does NOT fizzle before the finish.  How can you tell if a person is really saved?  Watch ‘em, and wait, and see if they finish the race...

-John softens the blow thus.  They were never of us, he says.  It’s not like they were ever really in.  They were never really saved, had never truly trusted in Jesus.  Like the son of perdition, Judas Iscariot.  He was never fully converted in his heart.  Sooner or later, the Lord of the harvest is faithful to cull out the tares from the wheat, to expose the ones who are not really part of His flock..

-But what we have then is an opportunity for compassion.  What if by God’s grace we manage lift our eyes, to wrench them off ourselves, our feelings of disappointment and betrayal and consider the state of this one who wounded us, the state of their soul which is so deceived that they would have spent that kind of time in the family and never embraced the truth in the core of their being?  And now they are standing in opposition to the truth?  They need our prayers.  That person you have in mind - they need your prayers...  And you know what, God will use the very fact of you praying for them to change - and heal - your heart.  Give it a try...

1John 2:18 - Playtime is over. It's game time.

"Children, last hour it is, and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, also now many antichrists have come to be, thus we are knowing that last hour it is."

-Antichrist.  Last hour.  The word is eschatos, meaning "last", from which we get eschatology - the study and knowledge of last things, of end times.  Fascinating subject, this.  Many hours of study and speculation can be (and are) devoted to this branch of theology.  And John says we are in it, the end of times, this great and fateful "Last Hour".  And he declared it thus 2000 years ago - we were in it then, and still today.  It is now the last hour.  And John says the way we know this to be so is that there are many antichrists who have come on the scene.  Many.  Many who are literally "against Christ".  That was already happening in John’s day.

-But John mentions first this notion of a last hour.  And he mentions it twice, but this specific phrase appears nowhere else in the New Testament.  Elsewhere John writes that Jesus had a "special" hour (John 2.4, 7.30, 8.20) - not 60 minutes per se but a time, a season, a divinely appointed period of significant import.  But the last hour - this subject does appear repeatedly throughout the New Testament, that there is coming (and now is) a season right before Christ returns for judgment.  Last days, end times - Jesus spoke at length of these (Matthew 24.3-25.46).  A time right before He returns to carry home His bride (Matthew 24.27, 24.31, 24.37-41, 25.1-13) and to judge the nations (Matthew 25.31-46)(on a day and an hour which nobody knows except the Father - Matthew 24.36).  A time of great upheaval and tribulation and opposition (Matthew 24.7-23).  There will be false prophets and false messiahs (Matthew 24.5, 24.11, 24.23-24), and a need for clarity, to be crystal clear about the Truth and Words and admonition of the Lord (Matthew 24.25, 24.35)!  Time to wake up and smell the coffee - or better, to make it, or to do whatever it is that a faithful servant of the Master ought to be doing (Matthew 24.42-46, Romans 13.11)!  A time (sadly) of falling away (Matthew 24.10, 1Timothy 4.1).  A time to get serious about the Lord (1Peter 4.7) - and to proclaim the Good News about Jesus (Matthew 24.14)!  A great final time of harvest (time to do so - cf Matthew 9.37-38, John 4.35)!  There will be (a need for) a sense of urgency, of the need for endurance (Matthew 24.13) and sobriety and to take seriously the Great Commission of our Lord, the things of eternity, the words and admonitions of Scripture, of our Lord, Who is not merely some lackey advisor.  He is King.  And we as His subjects - and His children - must be about the King’s business!

-John calls us children - it again is a word of tender care, but I think he’s also literally talking to children who need to wake up and quit messing around.  That’s what kids do.  They play.  They will play all day, if you let them.  And that is a wonderful thing, something which many of us adults forget how to do, but in the meantime, at this particular time, John says, playtime is over.  It needs to be over.  Because antichrist is coming.

-Antichrist.  That’s the literal word in the Greek - anti-kristos.  And this word can conjure up all kinds of dark and scary images.  There is much speculation as to who this person might be, whenever he will appear.  The actual word "antichrist" appears only 5 times in the entire NT, all of them in john’s letters (twice in this verse, plus 1John 2.22, 1John 4.3, 2John 7).  Look at these verses.  Every occurance actually appears to describe not a specific individual but rather a spirit of opposition.  John says here that many antichrists have already appeared.  Suffice it to say that antichrist is one - anyone - who denies the Father and the Son.  Many have and do do that.  It is any spirit which denies that Jesus is from God.  It could be any deceiving (deceived) person/spirit which does not acknowledge that Jesus Christ came in the flesh.  What we observe specifically with regard to this word "antichrist" is more of a general spirit of opposition to the person of Jesus, as opposed to a physical in-the-flesh person who will appear to usher in the tribulation (to be sure there is a rather ominous and scary and powerful individual mentioned in the book of Revelation who will usher in a 7-year period of terrible tribulation on earth - there he is called the beast, but not once does John, who also penned that book, refer to him as the antichrist).  For our purposes, and for John’s purposes in this letter, antichrist is best understood simply as what the word says - that which is against Christ.  It is those people - who are no doubt backed and supported at some level by unseen spiritual forces of darkness (cf Ephesians 6.10) - who oppose Christ’s work and purposes in the world as well as His people (Jesus said they would come - Matthew 24.9).  Which of course means that there could be - and are - many antichrists.  There are many who have stood in opposition to the truth about Who Jesus is and against the advancement of His Kingdom.  Which is exactly what John is saying here.  Many antichrists have appeared.  He is not talking about one specific individual here, he is talking in much broader terms.

-But because it is indeed the last hour, it’s time to wake up and do more than just smell the coffee!  Quit messing around!  Children - it is time to get up off our donkeys and get in the game.  It’s game time, not playtime, time for you and me and all our rowdy friends to start really loving the Lord and one another and our neighbor, no more of this monkeying around with 18 inches of pew once a week, a little dab’ll do ya and a fine howdee-do-ya.  What would it look like if God’s children really got to loving Him with all our heart and soul?  What would it look like if God’s family really got to loving one another?  What will it take?  We are running out of time - that’s what John is saying.  And I know he’s basically been saying that for almost 2000 years, so yes, maybe the hourglass is not going to run out in the next 60 minutes or even 60 days, but there is an intrinsic appeal here to adopt a mindset of all-in urgency.  But it is an interesting question - what if that really was all you and I had left?   If it were a game like football, even 60 minutes would mean we have the whole game left, but let's be honest.  We all know (or should) that we're not even talking about some pastime, some frivolous pursuit of perfecting the unnecessary.  This is the age-old death match of darkness versus the Light, the desperate struggle since the dawn of time for the glory of the King of the universe and for souls of those He so loves.  Indeed these stakes could be no higher.  Children, it is the last hour!

1John 2:17 - The Wants of God

"And the world is passing by and its desires, but the [one] doing the want of God is remaining unto the age."

-Yes, what we need is out of this world.  And we need to get out of this world - because it is doomed.  It is in fact slated for destruction.  Its long-term prospects are not only not good, they are non-existent.  The world is passing by, it is on its way out, like an outdated coat, only worse, cuz it’s on the chopping block.  The world AND its desires.  But more properly, for now, because we are still IN this world, we need to become not OF this world.  The problem (for now) is not that I am in this world, but rather that I can tend towards being OF this world, which means that my desires are FOR this world and the things of this world.  But let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater.  Desires are not the problem.  They are not bad or wrong in the least.  It is the object of my desire which makes all the difference - and the world’s desires are all those things which are apart from God, the desires to find life and happiness apart from its Creator.  They do not honor Him as God or give thanks, living life with Him cast out of mind.  And that busride is a one-way ticket to h-e-double-toothpicks.

-Instead, the key to forever, the ticket off the destruction bus and onto the eternity bus, is doing the want of God.  Yes, that sounds funny, because we don’t really talk about wants in that way, and in the church we rarely talk much about the wants of God, what He wants.  In fact, the translators render the Greek word "theléma" here as they consistently do everywhere when the word is used in connection with the Lord - they always translate it as the "will" of God.  The WILL of God.  Gotta know His will and seek His will and do His will.  But what does that really mean anyway?  The will of God.  Do we ever use that phrase in normal conversation, to refer to mere mortals?  The will of dad?  The will of Joe?  The only reason the phrase "will of God" doesn’t sound funny to religious ears is that we’ve been desensitized to it.  We talk about it all the time in the church - but do we really know what it means?  The noun in the Greek is almost exclusively used in reference to God, and appears to come off as describing some objective unfeeling volitional choice. (or set of choices)  But when you look at the word, especially its verb form in the Greek, it describes wants or wishes (cf Matthew 1.19, 5.40, 7.12, 9.13, 12.38, 13.28, 14.5, 15.28 - and so on and so on throughout the Greek new testament).  Pretty much every time Scripture talks about the theléma of a human being, the word is translated as "want".  But practically every time it is the theléma of God, it gets translated as "will".  The will of God.  And doesn’t that tend to remove the subjective from the situation, as if the God Who made us in His image does not have wants?  I understand that there is generally a wide gulf between what I want and what the holy God of heaven wants, and no doubt the translators are trying to make that kind of interpretive distinction between the two, but to the unchurched Greek ear there is no difference whatsoever.  The whole effect of what we have done in the church I think has been to sort of sterilize our God and turn Him into more of this stern stoic victorian prude.  He doesn’t have feelings, or desires, or wants.  Well, maybe He hates sin.  And I guess He loves, but it’s that agape love, which is supposed to be a choice and not so much a feeling.  But so we tend not to think in terms of what God wants.  And we get hung up somewhat, trying to figure out "the will of God" when we have sort of unintentionally turned Him into a being who is largely unrelatable.  And we try to objectify life’s biggest choices in a way which devalues and diminishes so much of what makes us humans made in His image in the first place.  He is a God Who has wants, just like us.  He gave us the exact same capacity, to want.  And so, when it comes to life’s biggest choices and all the smaller ones, maybe the place to start is exactly where John is pointing us here.  The wants of God.  What does God want?  Ask Him THAT question - God, what do YOU want?  What do You want me to do in this situation?  What do You want me to do today?  Recognizing that He can and does want to give us the desires of our heart when we are delighting in Him (Psalm 37.4).

-And is this not the essence of the wonderful dance of worship? - It is not about a meeting or even a programmed portion of that but about a lifestyle of enjoying and celebrating and showing off God’s breathtaking goodness every moment of every day everywhere we go - about being in this place where He is first in our hearts (not just in our minds), where we want Him more than anything or anyone, and all the things of this world which He gives us to enjoy in a temporal sense are seen for what they really are, as being gifts from Him, as extensions of His intent to bless and shower His goodness on His people.  The desires of the world, the longing for and pursuit of life and happiness apart from Him - all that which ultimately leads away from Him ultimately leads to destruction.  It leaves us empty in the present, and leaves us doomed for eternity.  The world as we know it, the world full of brokenness and death and despair and life lived apart from the Creator is doomed.  Gotta get off, gotta get WAY off this crazy bus of idolatry and practical atheism (living my life as if there is no God with Whom I have to do, putting other things first in my heart).  Jesus is the Way off.  He’s our ticket...!

1John 2:16 - Out Of This World

"Because everything which [is] in the world, the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes and the boasting of life, it is not out of the Father but rather out of the world it is."

-In the world vs. out of this world (i.e. out of the Father).  Yes, He made everything.  Everything which has come into being, He made it.  AND He made desire, the ability to enjoy these things.  He created us in His image, and gave us desires and the capacity for pleasure and joy -  just like Him.  So at the outset, we need to establish that there is nothing in fact wrong or bad about desires or wants.  Those are God-given.  And Scripture affirms that God has given us all good things to enjoy (1Tim 6.17).  He gives us so many different things which He designed for pleasure and enjoyment, things we (are to) receive with gratitude.  The existence of these things (everything!) and our enjoyment and use of them is not the problem.  It is their abuse where we get into trouble.

-God is ultimate.  These things He made, these desires He gave us - they are not ultimate.  We are not ultimate.  He is.  And John is saying that this is precisely where we go wrong in our hearts.  We put these things in His place.  We put our desires before His.  We put what we want before what He wants.  The word translated here as ‘lust’ is the Greek word for desire - and again, there is nothing inherently wrong with desire.  Desires are God-given, by the very One Who made them and has His own desires!  It is the object of the desire which makes all the difference.  The desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes - this is when we get to desiring other things more than the Lord.  And it’s easy to do, right?  Desires of the flesh - these are things which we can touch and feel and taste and smell.  Desires of the eyes - these are things we can see.  They quite possibly are things we don’t have (yet), and it could be that very non-possession which is energizing our desires for them.  We can tend to want what we don’t (or can’t) have.  It is the desire for more, more of the same, more of that thing which is giving us this great feeling in our flesh, in the here and now.  It makes us feel better about ourselves, or maybe simply makes us feel better.  It feels good.  And if it feels good, it can’t be wrong, right?  So what happens is that the question of what God wants is relegated to 2nd place.  Or 3rd.  Or an afterthought, if it exists at all.  "What do You want, Lord?", is scarcely a thought in our hearts.  The other part of this equation, John calls the boastful pride of life.  It is that very prioritization of the here and now.  What matters most is the here and now.  What I want, right now.  My present needs and wants.  And maybe those of those who matter most to me, because again, what matters most is me.  We may not quite verbalize it like this, but we live like this.  Living for and prioritizng me-myself-and-I, the threefold self, what I want, pursuing that which is pleasing to me rather than trying to be pleasing to God.  This is the default position of man.  Every man woman and child.  we emerge from the womb wired for self.  ‘"Mine!"  "No!"  "I want!"  These instincts are neither caught nor taught, they are native to our hearts.  And this is how the world lives apart from the love of the Father.  Apart from His love, we live apart from His love, loving neither Him nor our neighbor, and ultimately in putting ourselves first we do not love ourselves very well either.  This then is how we can tell those in whom the love of the Father is not.  They are living for self, living for the here and now, they put themselves first, what they want first, what they don’t have first, the here-and-now first.  And God is second, second-best at best.  And what they, what we all ultimately need is to get out of the way, out of ourselves, and out of this (enslavement to the things of the) world.  There is nothing in this world which will ultimately satisfy the desires of our heart.  What we need is out of this world...

1John 2:15 - On fountains and cisterns and the Cotton Candy Syndrome

"Do not be loving the world nor the [things] in the world.  if anyone may be loving the world, the love of the Father in him is not."

-My people have committed two evils, says the Lord.  They have forsaken Me, the Fountain of Living Water, to hew for themselves broken cisterns which can hold no water (Jeremiah 2.13).  A cistern was like a big storage tank hewn out of solid rock for collecting rainwater, commonly used in drier climates like those found in the land of the Bible, but it would only work if there were no leaks.  A broken leaky cistern would be useless, a colossal waste of time.  And is this not also the case for when we try to fill our own yawning soul-holes with the things of the world?  It is exactly here where we go astray in our hearts - loving the world.  The baubles, the trinkets - in our hearts we run after the things which lead us away from the heavenly feast, and we set our hearts on things which will never satisfy.  On things and stuff, on pastimes and leisure times and vacation times, on entertainment and adventure and romance and all the countless other things which the world has to offer, we fill up our tank with these things and it all leaks right out.  Much of it can be quite wonderful and good in its own right, but inevitably we bump up against the old cotton candy syndrome - a big tantalizing mound of fluffy confection which dissolves into nothingness, and leaves you with that nagging empty feeling.  Is that all there is?  There is no lasting satisfaction - in fact we typically tend to require ever increasing amounts of whatever it is we’re using to try and fill the infinite abyss in our hearts.  The law of diminishing returns invariably sets in.  It’s a fools paradise, leading us down the primrose path away from the Fountain of living waters, from the Source, the only true source of satisfaction, the only One Who can fill the hole in our hearts.  You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in You (Saint Augustine).

-So John gives us another litmus test here.  The person who may be so doing, loving the world, setting their heart and hope on the things of the world, pursuing and devoting themselves to that which is perishable - this one does not know the Father very well, and may very well not know him at all.  John says the love OF the Father is not IN them.  Commentators are a bit divided on what this means.  It could mean that this person does not love the Father, as in love FOR the Father is not in them.  A vertical disconnect.  And that is clear from the fact that they are putting other things in His place, giving the things of the world first place in their hearts.  It could also be a horizontal disconnect, in that - while they are prioritizing loving the things of the world - they are falling short of loving their brother.  They do not have the love of the Father FOR their brothers.  These two options, however, strike this author as somewhat redundant.  To state that they do not love one thing because they love the other thing is to merely state the obvious.  But it could also mean that the love FROM the Father is not in them, in that they show by their lack of love for the Lord and others that they have not truly embraced His love for them.  Cuz that's the proverbial spark, is it not?  We love because He first loved us, right (1John 4.19)?  Christ’s love compels us (2Corinthians 5.14-15).  To live for Him, to love Him, to love others with His love.  The one who does not love the Lord, who is not growing in their love for Him, who instead continues to set their heart on the pleasures and things of this world, shows that they have not truly come to know the love of the Father.  This conclusion is entirely consistent with the whole tenor of John’s epistle, as he repeatedly is giving us clear indicators as to whether or not a person actually knows the Lord.  He gives us one here.  Look at my love list.  Maybe it’s my bucket list.  Maybe it’s my top-10-things-I-enjoy list.  It could simply be my to-do list, or my checkbook (or the modern digital facsimile thereof).  Look at the things to which I am giving my time and my talent and my treasure - and my heart.  Day in and day out, and over the course of my life.  The world, the things of the world - they should decrease.  He must increase - love for Him, for His people, for His Word, etc.  The things of earth should and do grow strangely dim in the light of God’s amazing eternal love and breathtaking goodness, if you ever stop to take a look.  Have you taken a look?  Do you know Him?