Today was busy. Incredibly and unusually busy. I’m led to believe this week is just going to be a busy week. But, that’s no excuse to ignore the God who always makes time for you (or, the God who made time period… if we’re going on that timeless attribute). So, without further ado, here’s what’s up in today’s scheduled reading of the Bible!
Daniel 8 is another chapter about an end times vision. Once again, I am mostly powerless to understand the end times. And so is Daniel, see Daniel 8:27. The story is mostly about an evil ruler destroying many things and going into combat with Jesus. Which ruler this refers to is unknown; most of the civilizations mentioned are fairly non-existent at this point. The story ends with divine power breaking down the evil rule who overthrew truth. Nice story, but leaves me fairly confused about the end times still.
My daily reading in the New Testament takes us today to 1 John 2:1-17. A thoroughly phenomenal passage, if I can say that. There is easily a month of sermons in these seventeen verses. In summary, Jesus is the sacrifice for the sins of the world, people who love God obey his commands and love one another, and we are not to love the world. Let me highlight some verses in case you for some reason don’t want to read this whole passage:
1 John 2:4 says, “If someone claims, ‘I know God,’ but doesn’t obey God’s commandments, that person is a liar and is not living in truth.” Think on this for a second, you can say you know God, but if you don’t follow what he says to do, you’re lying. You are lying about knowing God. You don’t know God. Wow. The implications here are so huge I don’t think this blog can put it to words. But, continue on in 1 John 2:5-6 (which is boldfaced for importance in my Bible, FYI): “But those who obey God’s word truly show how completely they love him. That is how we know we are living in him. {6} Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did.” Plain and simple, that’s a statement of how we should live if we “know God.” Obey, completely love, and live as Jesus did. As big picture as this may be, apply it starting now in little ways in your life and build up to the life of complete love, the life in Him.
Following this is the classic “If you love Jesus but hate your brother,” passage. (Verses 9-11) Read it if you never have before, but I’ll just point out in passing that 1 John 2:10, in my translation, reads “Anyone who loves another brother or sister is living in the light and does not cause others to stumble.” So, this goes beyond you. We are to not hate our siblings in Christ so that we are not living in darkness, but also so that we don’t cause other people to stumble and follow our sinful hatred. Real world application: give up one grudge this week against a fellow Christian. You’ll be living more Christ-like, and you eliminate the potential for people to stumble and sin based on the example of your anger and hatred.
Now, worldly possessions. 1 John 2:15-16 says “Do not love the world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. {16} For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world.” This is a major theme of the New Testament, of denying your worldly possessions and desires so that you may have love for things above instead of things on this Earth. Although it is very difficult, a goal in our walks must be to fall out of love with the world and pleasures it offers. This process comes with a promise too, in 1 John 2:17: “And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever.”
I hope that today’s post was a good kind of uncomfortable, and got you thinking about your faith and real ways to strengthen it and do something about it.
Keep running hard after God,
-Zachariah