God’s Word Lives In Your Hearts

Wednesday, April 16, 2014         God’s Word Lives In Your Hearts

1 John 2: 3-14

In every congregation, there are those who are young in the faith, those who are well on their journey with Christ, and those who are mature in Christ. In today’s passage, John speaks to each group, and helps a preacher or teacher learn how to craft a message that touches the hearts and minds of all in the congregation.

John exhibits an interesting style in his writing that reminds me of many contemporary praise songs. In a manner similar to the Taizé movement in France, many contemporary songs use repetitive phrases as a means of meditation. The repetition helps the truth of the phrase go deep within our spirit. John is repetitive throughout this letter for the same reason.

John also is very direct in his style of writing. One of the greatest issues facing the Christian church is the number of people who do not yet grasp the depth of what it means to have faith in Jesus. Too many people think of faith as simply believing Jesus lived and died and was resurrected to life again. John addressed this issue -- head on: “If someone claims, “I know God,” but doesn’t obey God’s commandments, that person is a liar and is not living in the truth. Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did” (John 2:4 & 6). (The Apostle James was also quite direct in addressing this issue: “You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God. Good for you! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror. How foolish! Can’t you see that faith without good deeds is useless?” (James 2:19-20)

Even with John’s directness, my take away for today is a subtle phrase tucked into one of John’s repetitive phrases. In verse 13b, John affirmed the “young in the faith because you have won your battle with the evil one.” In verse 14c, John identifies the source of their victory: “I have written to you who are young in the faith because you are strong. God’s word lives in your hearts, and you have won your battle with the evil one.” (Emphasis mine)

God’s word lives in the hearts of all of God’s faithful children; those young in the faith as well as those who are mature in the faith.

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

• Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

• The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

• Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188.