{"id":28592,"date":"2023-10-31T22:00:13","date_gmt":"2023-11-01T05:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/1-john-2_18-29-copy\/"},"modified":"2023-10-24T17:05:14","modified_gmt":"2023-10-25T00:05:14","slug":"1-john-3_1-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/1-john-3_1-8\/","title":{"rendered":"he More You Look at Jesus, the More Like Jesus You Become"},"content":{"rendered":"

1 John 3:1-8<\/strong> \u00a0(CLICK HERE FOR\u00a0BIBLE VERSES)<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hi GAMErs!<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is 1 John 3:1-8.<\/p>\n

1 John 3:1a<\/strong>
\n1\u00a0<\/sup><\/em>\u00a0How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!<\/em><\/p>\n

On verse 1a:\u00a0 When our sin had disqualified us from God\u2019s presence and we had no right to have anything to do with God, God lavished His love on us when He sent His Son Jesus to die on the cross.\u00a0 It is through Jesus Christ that we can be called children of God.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0That\u2019s the identity changing love of our God.\u00a0 Because of His love, we\u2019re no longer the same.<\/strong>\u00a0 We go from sinners to saints, from excluded to included, from being orphaned to being part of His family.\u00a0 It\u2019s not because of anything we have done but because of His grace.<\/p>\n

1 John 3:1b (NIV)\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>
\n1<\/sup><\/em>\u2026The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verse 1b: \u00a0Through faith in Christ we are children of God, but of course the world does not know that or acknowledge that.\u00a0 As we looked at in 1 John 2:15-17, the world is a system of thinking, feeling and living that does not acknowledge Christ.\u00a0 It\u2019s a system that pervades our society.\u00a0 Since the world does not acknowledge God, the world will not acknowledge you as a child of God.\u00a0 Instead\u00a0the world will try to define you in other ways that are sometimes contradictory to what God\u2019s Word says about you.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0For example, God says, \u201cYou are loved and you are valuable in My sight just as you are\u201d, while the world says, \u201cYou will only be loved and valuable if you fulfill certain conditions.\u201d\u00a0You need to make a choice: am I going to the Word or the world define me?<\/strong><\/p>\n

1 John 3:2 (NIV)\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>
\n2\u00a0<\/sup><\/em>\u00a0Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verse 2:\u00a0 \u201cWe shall be like him.\u201d It\u2019s a mystery what our resurrection bodies will look like when we see Jesus face to face, but we know this: in heaven we will look and feel more like Jesus than ever before.\u00a0 Remember that heaven is a place without any sin, which means all those sinful struggles we had on earth will no longer hamper us in heaven.\u00a0 Praise God!<\/p>\n

\u201cFor we shall see him as he is\u201d: \u00a0There is something about seeing Jesus and being with Jesus that changes our countenance and our appearance.\u00a0 That\u2019s why in heaven, where we see Jesus fully face to face and all the time, we will become like Jesus too.\u00a0 In the meantime, here on earth, let\u2019s keep looking at Jesus and drawing close to Him, because\u00a0the more you look at Jesus and the more you spend time with Him, the more like Jesus you will become<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

1 John 3:3 (NIV)\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>
\n3\u00a0<\/sup><\/em>\u00a0Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verse 3:\u00a0 In other words, when we place our hope in Jesus, our sins are washed away and in God\u2019s eyes we become as pure as Jesus Himself.<\/p>\n

1 John 3:4 (NIV)\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>
\n4\u00a0<\/sup><\/em>\u00a0Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

On verse 4:\u00a0 To sin means to ignore what God\u2019s law says, to live as if there is no law.\u00a0 That is why John says that sin is lawlessness.<\/p>\n

1 John 3:5 (NIV)\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>
\n5\u00a0<\/sup><\/em>\u00a0But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verse 5: \u00a0Jesus didn\u2019t come just to teach us how to be good people.\u00a0 Far more than that, Jesus, the only pure human being in God\u2019s eyes, came to take our sins away by dying on the cross.\u00a0 That is the first purpose John mentions for why Jesus came.\u00a0 The second one is in verse 8.<\/p>\n

1 John 3:6-7 (NIV)\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>
\n6\u00a0<\/sup><\/em>\u00a0No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.\u00a0<\/em>
\n7\u00a0<\/sup><\/em>\u00a0Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. He who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 6-7:\u00a0 Don\u2019t misunderstand these verses.\u00a0 Here John is not saying that if you sin after believing in Jesus that you have lost your salvation or that you never had salvation.\u00a0 Rather John is saying that a natural effect of trusting in Jesus is that you don\u2019t keep on sinning like you used to, that now you are more conscious of a holy God, have power to overcome temptation and this results in a holier, more righteous and victorious life.\u00a0 As a Christian you will still have struggles, and you may still fall into temptation from time to time, but the general direction of your life is that you are growing more like Jesus in holiness and righteousness as time goes by.\u00a0 If I keep on sinning just as I did before, such that there is no difference between my life before I \u201cmet Jesus\u201d and after, then I need to question whether I really did receive Jesus in the first place, since \u201cNo one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him\u201d (v6).<\/p>\n

1 John 3:8 (NIV)\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>
\n8\u00a0<\/sup><\/em>\u00a0He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verse 8:\u00a0 In verse 5 John says that Jesus came to take away our sins.\u00a0 Here in verse 8 John mentions another reason why Jesus came: to destroy the devil\u2019s work. These two purposes are related, for if it is with the devil\u2019s influence that we sin, in order to take away our sins, Jesus has to somehow deal with the devil who influences us to sin.<\/p>\n

Father, thank You that the more we look at Jesus, the more we will look like Jesus.\u00a0 May my eyes be on Jesus today and may I become more like Him as I look at Him.\u00a0 In Jesus\u2019 name, AMEN!<\/em><\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2021 Justin Lim. All rights reserved.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi GAMErs!<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is 1 John 3:1-8.<\/p>\n

1 John 3:1a
\n1\u00a0\u00a0How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!<\/p>\n

On verse 1a:\u00a0 When our sin had disqualified us from God\u2019s presence and we had no right to have anything to do with God, God lavished His love on us when He sent His Son Jesus to die on the cross.\u00a0 It is through Jesus Christ that we can be called children of God.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0That\u2019s the identity changing love of our God.\u00a0 Because of His love, we\u2019re no longer the same.\u00a0 We go from sinners to saints, from excluded to included, from being orphaned to being part of His family.\u00a0 It\u2019s not because of anything we have done but because of His grace.<\/p>\n

1 John 3:1b (NIV)\u00a0
\n1\u2026The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.<\/p>\n

On verse 1b: \u00a0Through faith in Christ we are children of God, but of course the world does not know that or acknowledge that.\u00a0 As we looked at in 1 John 2:15-17, the world is a system of thinking, feeling and living that does not acknowledge Christ.\u00a0 It\u2019s a system that pervades our society.\u00a0 Since the world does not acknowledge God, the world will not acknowledge you as a child of God.\u00a0 Instead\u00a0the world will try to define you in other ways that are sometimes contradictory to what God\u2019s Word says about you.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28594,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gametime-sharing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28592"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28611,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28592\/revisions\/28611"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}