{"id":8772,"date":"2020-04-14T20:00:28","date_gmt":"2020-04-15T03:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/?p=8772"},"modified":"2020-04-12T18:54:38","modified_gmt":"2020-04-13T01:54:38","slug":"1john2_18-29","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/1john2_18-29\/","title":{"rendered":"You Can\u2019t Have God Without Jesus"},"content":{"rendered":"

1 John 2:18-29\u00a0Click here for Bible Verses<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is 1 John 2:18-29.\u00a0 Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n

1 John 2:26 (NIV)\u00a0<\/strong>
\n26\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray.<\/em><\/p>\n

What is going on in these verses?\u00a0 The apostle John is warning his readers about false teachers.\u00a0 These false teachers were originally part of the church that John led, but they left the church (v19) and were now teaching that Jesus is not the Christ (that is, not the Messiah that the Jews were waiting for nor the Saviour that we all need) (v22).<\/p>\n

These teachers were likely telling the people in John\u2019s church, \u201cYou do not know the truth\u201d (v21), accusing John and the other apostles of lying to them.\u00a0 In response, John reassures his people that \u201cyou have an anointing form the Holy One, and all of you know the truth\u201d (v20).\u00a0 With more reassuring words, John writes, \u201cI 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\u201d (v21).\u00a0\u00a0 He urges them to continue in the faith and not to feel insecure just because these false teachers were saying \u201cYou\u2019re missing something!\u201d (v27-28).<\/p>\n

In particular these false teachers were likely saying, \u201cyou don\u2019t need to believe in Jesus.\u00a0 All you need is to believe in God (the Father)\u201d.\u00a0 In response, John clarifies that if you don\u2019t have the Son Jesus in your life, you don\u2019t have the Father either, and that \u201cwhoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also\u201d (v23).\u00a0 John says that those false teachers are the real liars (v22) because they deny Jesus.\u00a0 Borrowing from the common belief that one day an anti-Christ (a powerful leader who would turn God\u2019s people away from the truth) would come, John calls these false teachers \u201cantichrists\u201d (v18, v22) because of how they have rejected Jesus and are leading people astray.<\/p>\n

What can we learn from this?\u00a0 What the false teachers were teaching in John\u2019s time is similar to what you will frequently hear in our world today.\u00a0\u00a0Many people nowadays espouse a belief in God generally but deny any need for Jesus specifically. But you can\u2019t get to God without Jesus Christ.\u00a0 Without Jesus and His shed blood on the cross, there is no provision for our sins, no forgiveness and no access to God or heaven.\u00a0 Only Jesus provides a sure way to the Father.<\/strong>\u00a0 As Jesus Himself says,\u00a0\u201cI am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.\u00a0If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well\u2026\u201d\u00a0(John 14:6-7).\u00a0 Most people believe in God, but it is not belief in God that saves us.\u00a0 Even demons believe in God (James 2:19).\u00a0 What counts is faith in Jesus.<\/p>\n

1 John 2:29 (NIV)\u00a0<\/strong>
\n29\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who\u00a0does<\/u><\/strong>\u00a0what is right has been born of him.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verse 29:\u00a0 To paraphrase John here, \u201cRighteousness is in God\u2019s DNA.\u00a0 What that means is that those who are born of God will exhibit righteousness as well, not just in what they say but also in what they do.\u201d\u00a0 Here John may be indirectly suggesting that the conduct of these false teachers was not righteous and thus the people in his church must be careful to take what these false teachers taught with a grain of salt.<\/p>\n

What can we learn from this?\u00a0\u00a0If righteousness is God\u2019s DNA, we as children of God are to live righteously by God\u2019s power as well.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Heavenly Father, thank You for showing us what true, saving faith looks like.\u00a0 It\u2019s not just believing in God generally, but believing in Your Son Jesus Christ and what He did for us.\u00a0 Thank You that when we had no clue how to get to You, You got to us through the bridge called Your Son and His cross.\u00a0 In Jesus\u2019 name, AMEN!<\/em><\/p>\n

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<\/div>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is 1 John 2:18-29.\u00a0 Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n

1 John 2:26 (NIV)\u00a0
\n26\u00a0\u00a0I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray.<\/p>\n

What is going on in these verses?\u00a0 The apostle John is warning his readers about false teachers.\u00a0 These false teachers were originally part of the church that John led, but they left the church (v19) and were now teaching that Jesus is not the Christ (that is, not the Messiah that the Jews were waiting for nor the Saviour that we all need) (v22).\u00a0<\/p>\n

These teachers were likely telling the people in John\u2019s church, \u201cYou do not know the truth\u201d (v21), accusing John and the other apostles of lying to them.\u00a0 In response, John reassures his people that \u201cyou have an anointing form the Holy One, and all of you know the truth\u201d (v20).\u00a0 With more reassuring words, John writes, \u201cI 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\u201d (v21).\u00a0\u00a0 He urges them to continue in the faith and not to feel insecure just because these false teachers were saying \u201cYou\u2019re missing something!\u201d (v27-28). \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8773,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8772","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\/8772","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=8772"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8775,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8772\/revisions\/8775"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}