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Jude 1:17-23
But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, that they were saying to you, "In the last time there will be mockers, following after their own ungodly lusts." These are the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded, devoid of the Spirit. But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking forward to the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. And have mercy on some, who are doubting; save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh.

What marks a false teacher?

Primarily it is their forgetfulness or maybe indifference. At any rate, the church is informed and influenced by remembrance which is a work of the Spirit. And the first indication that a teacher, prophet, or preacher is false is their self-invention and contempt for the teachings handed down by the apostles. Remembrance is the Spirit’s work in the true church; and forgetfulness (or contempt) is the air the false teachers breathe. They do not stand in the stream of what was handed down; they invent, revise, or simply disregard it. This is why Jude immediately moves into remembering "the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles" instead of debating or attempting to refute their arguments. Jude lets the teachings teach.

And Jude doesn't invent a new warning, this tension has existed since before Jesus began his earthly ministry. The tension between those who receive the delivered faith and those who treat it as raw material for self-invention runs through the entire New Testament and, in seed form, through the Old Testament. In fact this is a common thread throughout the entire biblical story. Jude simply presses the same alarm with pastoral urgency on a congregation that is feeling the pressure.

Self-invention and contempt for the apostolic deposit are therefore early and reliable indicators. When a teacher begins to speak as though the faith once for all delivered is somehow incomplete, culturally outdated, or in need of creative updating by the present generation, the warning lights should flash.

The true teacher stands under the word; the false teacher stands over it, or beside it, or uses it as a launching pad for something else.

Often influenced by paganism, secular pursuits, or both, these "teachers" mock the apostolic teachings with their religious inventions. Sexual license, rejection of authority, and greedy exploitation dressed in spiritual language. These "mockers" are not usually open atheists; they are religious figures who follow their own ungodly lusts while still claiming spiritual authority.

Worldly lusts dressed up in priestly robes produces a religion that looks spiritual but is driven by the same appetites and assumptions that shape the surrounding culture. Absent the Spirit this compromised truth hardens them into a settled posture of independence from the apostolic deposit. They replace that witness with their own philosophical view.

And this is why it's incredibly dangerous and damaging for the church; it's not simply bad behavior or even wrong ideas in isolation, but a settled independence from the apostolic deposit. So settled an approved by their synods that entire religious communities will alter nearly everything the apostles taught and then codify that falsehood for centuries as settled religious practice and authority.

When that independence becomes institutionalized; approved, defended, and codified by councils, synods, or long-standing religious structures, it can reshape entire communities for generations.

So, where is the Spirit while this is going on? Why are these false teachers allowed to thrive and completely ignore the truth for millennia? Why does God allow their drift to become institutionalized and then endure?

Scripture does not give a shallow answer. It gives a sober one.

The Holy Spirit has never promised to prevent every form of religious corruption or to keep every institution that uses Christian language pure. Jesus Himself told us the wheat and the tares would grow together until the harvest (Matthew 13:24–30, 36–43). The apostles warned that fierce wolves would come in among the flock and that from among the elders themselves men would arise speaking twisted things (Acts 20:29–30).

So, if nothing else, this real-time example being played out in pretty much every Christian denomination, is proof positive of the Spirit's ability to predict the outcome. The presence of long-standing error inside religious structures is not evidence that the Spirit has failed; it is evidence that the warnings were true.

Paul taught that there must be factions among us so that those who are approved may become evident (1 Corinthians 11:19). A sort of sorting out or weeding process. A filtering.

These are not surprises that caught the Spirit off guard. They are the very outcomes He told us to expect. He hasn't left the building, He's allowing the building to shake out the errors.

The shaking is real. The sorting is real. The long endurance of institutionalized independence from the apostolic deposit is real. Yet none of it means the Spirit has abandoned the field. The same Spirit who warned through Jesus and the apostles is still present, still preserving a people who live by remembrance rather than by self-invention, still calling the beloved to build, to pray, to keep themselves, and to look for the mercy that is coming.

Jude turns us toward the posture that endures through all of it:

"But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in The Spirit"

Not just simple subjective trust, but a "most holy faith". Called "most holy" because of its divine origin and character. It is not a human philosophy that rests on relativism open to revision by each new generation. It is sacred, set apart, and sufficient.

Beloved, we do not drift into maturity, nor do we wait for institutional structures to guarantee it. You’re not going to keep to the faith by osmosis. Building on the most holy faith is active, continuous, and deliberate. We must actively and continuously engage with this tension. It cannot be ignored. It requires attention to the apostolic word, a refusal of foreign language and materials, and a shared life under that consistent foundation. Maturity is not absorbed from the religious atmosphere around us; it is constructed, by the Spirit’s help, on what has already been given.

This apostolic deposit is the abundant material that has been produced by a surplus of the Spirit's work for just this purpose. Not merely for the individual to supply his own daily spiritual needs, but for the development of the whole community of faith. This deposit is stored up for us so that we can farm that seed and make new disciples. It is not for the lone soul, even the lost who are receiving faith are nearly always immediately moved to evangelism. This is why Jude’s language is plural, "building yourselves up", and the letter is concerned with the health and perseverance of the church together, not isolated private spirituality. The faith once delivered is meant to be received, guarded, taught, and passed on so that the community is strengthened and new disciples are made. That generative, discipling direction is right and important.

Personal edification and corporate building are not competitors. This is why I participate in the Kairos prison ministry. Even though I am troubled to my soul by the errors of the modern church, I know I cannot persevere in an isolated private spirituality. I must abide in the community Christ has established in some way or another.

The danger Jude addresses is not personal use of the deposit, but replacing it with self-invented teaching.

Keep watch! Use a mirror when necessary.

Amen 🙏🏼

Jude 1:1-2
"From Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and a brother of James.
To all who have been called by God. God the Father loves you, and you have been kept safe in Jesus Christ: Mercy, peace, and love be yours richly."

Being sanctified (set apart), to be used as an instrument in the worship and work of God, is a life meant for God's own purposes. It is a life preserved in Jesus Christ and kept in the Spirit.

Jude opens up his letter with quiet weight. He does not lean on his blood relation to James the brother of the Lord Jesus. He chooses instead the word that costs something; bondservant (slave). A will surrendered. Ownership transferred. The one who once might have claimed family privilege now simply says, "I belong to Jesus Christ."

That identity sets the tone for everything that follows.

He doesn't even assert himself as any ranking member in the churches. No mention of anointing or station. He is just writing as one summoned by God Himself, not by religious ambition or human decision. Loved by God the Father. Kept for Jesus Christ. A life meant for God’s own purposes is therefore not a life we invent or manage into usefulness. It is a life already preserved in Jesus Christ and continually kept by the Spirit; set apart so that the Master’s hand can pick it up and use it as He wills.

As is seen in that the letter Jude sat and intended to write was written instead according to the purposes of the Spirit. Jude’s original intention is quietly set aside. He sat down meaning to write about the shared salvation they already possessed—the common faith, the grace already given. That would have been a warm, encouraging letter. Instead the Spirit presses a different urgency. The tone shifts from celebration to warning, from rest to vigilance. The letter that reaches us is not the one Jude first planned. It is the one the Master required.

And what's the subject of the exhortation?

Unregenerate people within the church.

The leaven from within, not the outside forces persecuting them, but the sexually perverse "believers" in name only. The danger Jude is forced to address is not the open hostility of the world outside the church. It is the quiet presence of those who have slipped in among the called. They share the language of grace, sit among the saints, and yet remain unregenerate.

And do you know who sits with them?

Satan.

The Devil could not destroy Jesus and His ministry, so he went to church. He joined the congregations. He became the itinerant priests and prophets. He sat in their councils and among their synods. He prayed with them. Sang hymns with them. Took the host and wine. The enemy who could not overthrow the Son from the outside now works from within the household. He does not need to burn the building when he can sit among the called, speak the language of grace, and slowly redefine what that grace means.

The false teachers Jude confronts are not merely mistaken brothers. They are the human face of a deeper hostility that has learned to wear the clothes of the church. Yet Jude does not leave the saints staring at the devil. He names these men. He describes their character, their speech, their sensuality, their rejection of authority.

The bondservants of Jesus are not told to hunt for invisible principalities in every disagreement. They are told to recognize the unregenerate who have crept in unnoticed, who turn the grace of God into license, and who deny the only Master and Lord. The Master who keeps His own also equips them to see the difference between those who belong to Him and those who only wear His name.

The slave’s task remains the same; belong wholly to Jesus, and contend for the faith. Especially when the threat has taken a seat at the table.

True believers are kept by God, and will not cover for unrepentant immorality or the rejection of Christ’s lordship.

Jude's letter feels like a concentrated version of Paul’s letters. To the point.

Paul builds the wide house; doctrine, pastoral care, warning, and assurance woven together across many pages. Jude strips it down to the urgent core.

Wake up.

Contend.

Do not mistake the presence of religious language for the presence of the Spirit.

Do not let the word "grace" be stretched until it covers what Christ came to destroy.

Jude seems to me like the guy who would never take a course in philosophy or science and society without insisting on including the gospel. Jude is the man who refuses to leave the gospel in the hallway while the rest of the conversation proceeds indoors. He would sit through the philosophy seminar, the science-and-society lecture, the cultural analysis, and then quietly insist that none of it is neutral ground. Every claim about reality, every theory of the human person, every discussion of power or desire or freedom eventually collides with the question of the Master.

He seems like me.

The refusal to leave the gospel in the hallway, the insistence that no subject is neutral ground, the willingness to interrupt comfortable conversation with the claim of the Master, will not make you a popular person. That is the mark of a life that has been called, loved, and kept.

Jude did not invent this posture. It is the natural fruit of belonging. The slave who has truly transferred ownership cannot treat any human domain as autonomous. Philosophy, culture, desire, power, even the language of grace itself; all of it must eventually answer to Jesus. To leave the gospel outside the room would be to act as if the Master’s claim has limits.

Brothers and sisters, do not allow this world to strip down your faith. To denude it. To destroy the Master's resurrection. To allow those who claim "belief" in "God", while rejecting the gospel of His Son. These people are by definition unregenerate. They have, as Paul would say, "a form of religion while denying its power."

Yes I know, the slave who will not leave the gospel in the hallway will be called narrow, unkind, or "unnuanced." Even so, do not make peace with those who claim belief in "God" while rejecting the gospel of His Son. Jude will not let us soft-pedal the difference. Neither should we. The same grace that keeps the saints also exposes the counterfeit. The same Spirit who redirected the letter still presses the church to contend. The letter is short because the truth is not complicated.

Belong wholly to Jesus.
Keep the gospel in the room.

Refuse the stripped-down version.

The Master who keeps His own is still worthy of an undivided confession.

Amen? 🙏🏼

2 John 1:8-11
"Watch yourselves, that you do not lose what we have accomplished, but that you may receive a full reward. Anyone who goes too far and does not remain in the teaching of Christ, does not have God; the one who remains in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house, and do not give him a greeting; for the one who gives him a greeting participates in his evil deeds."

There is this idea that the biblical principle (command really) that the followers of Jesus Christ must love one another, and this love means tolerate one another. Don't be angry. Don't be upset or at odds. Don't argue and debate, or participate in anyone form of disagreement. Schism is sinful and this behavior among the people of God is shameful.

John's second letter refines this idea. His previous letter never defined love in the way I describe before.

John himself is the apostle who writes both ideas:

"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God" (1 John 4:7)

and

"If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him" (2 John 10).

That is boundary-setting for the sake of the truth. John’s response is uncompromising.

So, is that a contradiction? Is John being unkind, unchristian?

He's not only saying that the children of God should not welcome these untruths among their congregations; he's saying they shouldn't even bless that false teacher as they send them away.

No, it is not a contradiction. And no, John is not being unkind or unchristian.
John is being consistent. In 1 John, love is never defined as unlimited tolerance or the refusal to draw lines. Love is defined in relation to truth and obedience.

"By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments" (1 John 5:2).

So what is this definition of Love?

How is faithfulness Love?

Love, according to John, is not a feeling of goodwill or the refusal to disagree. It is defined by its origin, its object, and its evidence. It's not just about having the knowledge of Jesus Christ, it's following Him as your Lord that brings Salvation. It isn't speaking creeds or a sinners prayer, it's doing the Word of God. Love, in John's letters, is never reduced to correct information about Jesus or a one-time verbal confession. It is the lived reality of abiding in Him and walking in the truth He revealed. Knowledge without obedience is incomplete; confession without discipleship is empty. It's an empty meaningless love. Shallow and incomplete. It'll dry up in the drought because it has no depth.

Love that stops at correct information, a verbal confession, or a general attitude of niceness, has no root. It cannot endure. When the heat comes on, when the pressure rises, and when false teaching presses in, or when obedience becomes too costly, it withers.

John puts it plainly:
"If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him" (1 John 2:15).

Love that is not joined to abiding and obedience is not the love that comes from God. It's phony. It looks similar in the easy times but has no life in it. But it's not just a weak link in the church, it becomes a festering wound that'll putrefy the whole thing.

A love that refuses to remain in the teaching, or that welcomes those who deny it, does not simply stay weak and private. It becomes contagious. It softens the church’s discernment. And I t trains people to treat the person of Jesus Christ as negotiable. And we see this exact situation happening in every denomination of the Christian world. When a church (or a movement) decides that the highest expression of love is indifferentism around the person and work of Christ, the result is predictable. Discernment erodes. The incarnation, the atonement, the exclusive lordship of Jesus, and the authority of His Word, all become negotiable in the name of unity, and inclusion.

The pressure is rarely open denial at first. It is the steady training of people to treat the historic confession of Christ as secondary to relational harmony, cultural relevance, or institutional survival. The object of faith becomes the needs of the organization. Once that training takes hold, the boundary John drew in 2 John is quietly erased. And once the boundary is gone, the infection spreads.

The answer John gives is not complicated, but it is costly.

Remain in the teaching.

Abide in it.

Walk in the truth.

And here's where the rubber meets the road; refuse to lend legitimacy to those who will not.

Is that schism?

No, it's faithfulness.

And in John’s theology, faithfulness is love; love for God, love for the brothers and sisters, and love that will not let the flock be quietly led away from the only Savior.

That is the decisive point.

Once the needs of the organization; its harmony, its relevance, its survival, quietly take the place of the teaching of Christ as the highest loyalty, the boundary John drew is already gone. The language of love remains, but the substance has changed. What is now protected is no longer the flock’s hold on the Savior; it is the institution’s hold on itself.

Those who have already relocated the center of their Love for God will call this schism, unkind, unchristian and uncharitable. The charge is predictable because the goalpost has been moved. Once relational peace or organizational survival becomes the highest good, any boundary that threatens it must be treated as the real sin.

John is not surprised by this. He has already told us that the love of the Father and the love of the world cannot occupy the same center (1 John 2:15).

And so there we have it, the test is plain to see, does this "love" remain in the teaching of Christ, or has it moved the center elsewhere? Can it hold up to the scrutiny of the teachings?

If it cannot, it is something else wearing the same name. And it must go. There is no third option John leaves open. Either the center remains the teaching of Christ, or the center has been moved. What has been moved cannot be kept.

The moment truth is treated as optional for the sake of "love," the two have already been set against each other. Real love does not stand opposite truth.

It requires it.

It abides in it.

It covenants with it.

And it refuses to bless that which denies it.

Love and truth are not opposites because, in John’s theology, they cannot be separated without destroying both.

Ironically, one of the best metaphors for this is the Christmas tree. It's cut, brought inside, decorated, and held up as a symbol of everlasting life. It stands green and bright for a season. People gather around it. Songs are sung. The language of life and hope fills the room. And the tree itself has no idea it is already dead. Its roots are gone. Once the root is gone, the end is only a matter of time.

The appearance of life is only temporary. In a few weeks the needles will brown and fall, and what was treated as a sign of permanence will be hauled out and discarded.

The symbol of the highest form of love is already cut off from its source. It still uses the language of love. It still stands in the center of the room. It is still treated as the sign of life and unity. But it's dead. It's phony counterfeit love. It does not know it is already dead. And neither do many of those who keep decorating it and calling it love.

It's a sad and sobering way to end a devotion, but by definition of the word, it is devotion that is the point.

True devotion does not exist to leave us comfortable. It exists to keep us rooted in the One who is life. Devotion is the costly, clear-eyed loyalty that stays with Christ even when the alternative is called uncharitable.

So, a devotion that will not tell the truth about false love is not devotion at all.

Amen.

Acts 1:21-22
"Therefore it is necessary that of the men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning with the baptism of John until the day that He was taken up from us, one of these must become a witness with us of His resurrection."

What lays the foundation for the Spiritual gift of Apostle?

Simply put, the foundation is laid by the unique, non-repeatable combination of two things; commissioning by the risen Lord Jesus Himself, and eyewitness status of the resurrection. That is the non-negotiable biblical requirement for the office of apostle in the foundational sense. Peter is not inventing a new rule in Acts 1. He is simply restating what Jesus had already established. The apostles were not self-appointed, nor were they appointed by the church.

They were chosen and sent (literally the definition of an apostle) by the resurrected Christ. Their authority rested on having seen the risen Lord and having been directly authorized by Him to speak and write as His authoritative witnesses.

On this,the church is built.
Ephesians 2:20
" having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone"

Once the foundation is laid, you do not keep laying it. You build on it. What follows is the framework for the structure. The weight of which is supported by that foundational truth. Not by new truth upon new truth, but by that first and foremost truth.

The apostolic foundation is not a continuing office or a stream of new revelation. It is a once-laid, historical reality consisting of men who were personally commissioned by the risen Christ and who were eyewitnesses of His resurrection. Their authority was derived by His direct appointment and their unique testimony.

That is the crucial distinction. The apostolic foundation is not a starting point that later generations improve upon; it is the fixed, finished base that every subsequent generation must build upon and can only remain true to because the level set by those foundational truths is firsthand witness.

Every subsequent generation must build upon and remain true to that foundation. Later generations do not establish a new leveling, they either build true to that level or they drift from it.

If the apostolic foundation is complete, and the structure has been building for centuries; then any claim to the office of apostle today is not a recovery of something lost, it is a denial of something completed. There is no succession plan, no mechanism for transferring the office, and no promise that the church would continue to receive foundational revelation through new apostles. Once the foundation was laid and the faith was...

"once for all delivered to the God's people" (Jude 3)

...the work of laying foundation ceased. What remains is the work of building faithfully upon it.

Modern claims of "apostleship" almost always redefine the word. The term is stretched to mean visionary leader, church planter, network overseer, or someone who claims special revelatory authority. But no matter how you phrase it, a redefined word is not the same office.

These movements establish authority built upon the witness of living personalities who speak above or beyond the finished written witness. Once the fixed level set by the firsthand witnesses is abandoned, every generation becomes free to set its own level. What begins as a claim to greater anointing often ends in greater confusion. And we all should know who the father of confusion is.

So what does this mean for us, here and now?

It means we build carefully.

Faithfulness refuses the temptation to claim a greater anointing that somehow supersedes what the first witnesses declared. The foundation has already been laid. Now let us build true to it.

The church does not need new apostles. It needs men and women who will take the apostolic Word seriously.

On this,the church is built.
Ephesians 2:20
" having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone"

Once the foundation is laid, you do not keep laying it. You build on it. What follows is the framework for the structure. The weight of which is supported by that foundational truth. Not by new truth upon new truth, but by that first and foremost truth.

The apostolic foundation is not a continuing office or a stream of new revelation. It is a once-laid, historical reality consisting of men who were personally commissioned by the risen Christ and who were eyewitnesses of His resurrection. Their authority was derived by His direct appointment and their unique testimony.

2 John 1:1-3
"The elder to the chosen lady and her children, whom I love in truth; and not only I, but also all who know the truth, because of the truth which remains in us and will be with us forever: Grace, mercy, andpeace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love."

John, the elder. Not a prophet, not a unique revelation making unique claims. Just the seasoned voice of one who has walked long with the truth and now writes out of pastoral concern. And he's writing to the family of God. Not an institution. Not a Magisterium. But an elect lady and her children. The church is first and last a people chosen in Christ, bound together by the truth that remains in them.

The weight of John's letter does not rest on his title; it rests on the truth that abides forever.

Jesus said the truth will never fail. He said,
"Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away" (Matthew 24:35).

And Jesus went on to say,
"If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free" (John 8:31-32).

The truth remains and it will be with us forever because it is bound to the One who cannot lie and whose word cannot fail.

Even so, there is a threat to this truth.

"For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch yourselves, that you do not lose what we have accomplished, but that you may receive a full reward. Anyone who goes too far and does not remain in the teaching of Christ, does not have God; the one who remains in the teaching has both the Father and the Son." (2 John 1:7-9)

Jesus Christ coming in the flesh is not a secondary detail. It is the heart of the teaching. To go beyond it, or to leave it behind, is to lose both the Father and the Son. Love in truth does not mean develop a soft tolerance of denial. And John pulls no punches.

2 John 1:10-12
"If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house, and do not give him a greeting; for the one who gives him a greeting participates in his evil deeds."

Seem harsh?
UnChristlike?

It does, especially to modern ears trained to equate love with an open-handed welcome and disagreement with intolerance.

But you have to understand the context. In the first-century church, hospitality was not optional politeness. House churches depended on it. In the first century there were itinerant travelers claiming to be prophets and teachers. They moved from place to place, and the local believers were expected to receive them, feed them, and give them a place to stay.

They would drop in on these house churches and communities of faith. Claiming to have a word from God. Often for a price. The problem was that not every traveler who claimed a word from the Lord actually carried the truth. Some denied that Jesus Christ had come in the flesh. Others mixed the gospel with speculative ideas or used the circuit for personal gain.

Today the forms have changed, but the pattern remains recognizable. In our age we'd call them grifters. Clout chasers. Traveling podcasters of a sort. Traveling voices who monetize spiritual language, build platforms on partial truths or speculative systems, and expect affirmation from the people of God.

The issue John addresses is the same:

Does this person bring the teaching of Christ?

Has Jesus come in the flesh, or something else?

To open the door and extend the greeting to someone who denied that Jesus Christ had come in the flesh was to participate in the very deception that threatened the household.

Whether you're providing a space in the church, a guest room, a conference, or an internet feed, the danger remains the same. The issue is still partnership. Whether the teaching of Christ Jesus come in the flesh is being brought or set aside.

Imagine John today, from his cell in Patmos. Broadcasting his podcast. Reaching the churches of Jesus Christ around the world. speaking into a microphone instead of writing on parchment, still addressing the household of God rather than an institution. Still locating the church’s life in the truth that remains forever. Taking questions from the chat, and still measuring every voice by one question:

Does this bring the teaching of Christ, Jesus come in the flesh, or something else? Are they presenting a Jesus who is an illusion? A Christ who only appeared to have a real human body? Are they treating the cross was a theater of appearances? Are they emptying the cross of Jesus the man/God, like some kind of phantom?

I think today this problem still persists. Among the Muslim and Jewish traditions. And in many offsprings. The issue comes from a religious belief that cannot accept Jesus as the Son of God, both man and divine. The confession that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, and that He is the Son of the Father, both truly man and truly God, remains a decisive point of division.

I believe, if I had to point out one scripture passage that should dispel these claims...

I'd share Proverbs 30:4 with them:

"Who has ascended into heaven and descended?
Who has gathered the wind in His fists?
Who has wrapped the waters in His garment?
Who has established all the ends of the earth?
What is His name or His Son’s name?
Surely you know!"

Agur’s questions in the proverbs are meant to expose our human limitation. And at the same time challenge our understanding of the divine nature. The proverb riddle does not explain how God can be man or come in the person of a Son; it simply sets the reality before us and leaves us without a merely human answer.

John’s testimony meets both sides of that challenge. The limitation is answered by revelation. The Son has come in the flesh, and those who receive this apostolic witness now know His name. The mystery of the divine nature is not dissolved but clarified; Jesus Christ is the Son of the Father, truly God and truly man. The One who gathers the wind and establishes the earth is the same One who entered our condition without ceasing to be who He is.

The truth that remains is the truth of this Son, known now because He has come in the flesh. And to know the Son’s name is to know who He is and the claim He makes. To refuse the teaching that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is to refuse the name in which the Father is known.

Proverbs 30:4 ends with the challenge...

"Surely you know!"

The One who ascended and descended has done so by taking real flesh, real blood, and a real cross. The name is now known because the Person has been among us (Emmanuel).

1 John 4:13-15
"By this we know that we remain in Him and He in us, because He has given to us of His Spirit. We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him, and he in God."

John is still pressing the same vital question that runs through the entire letter.

How do we know we truly belong to God?

Obviously this was on the minds of the first century church.

Why?

Why question their own sincerity?

They were questioning because the church had been infiltrated and then fractured. And it's confusing to see so much worship and fellowship and yet at the same time see people being crude and stupid. People screwing around with idols and pagan spirituality.

It becomes a stumbling block for faith with those whose love doesn't run deep. The early believers were not mainly wrestling with abstract philosophical doubt. People who had shared the table, sung the hymns, and claimed the same Lord were now drifting into compromise. With behaviors that contradict the gospel they once confessed.

It's confusing because faith is supposed to have overcome the world. When worship and worldliness sit side by side in the same community, two things happen. First among those whose attachment is mostly to the experience of fellowship or the appearance of spirituality begin to question everything. If the people around them can claim Christ while still chasing idols, maybe the whole thing is an unstable mess. And those whose love is rooted in the person of Christ and the gift of the Spirit are grieved. Not shaken, but disappointed and concerned about how these things can affect their ministry.

John is writing to this second group. He's calling them deeper. And that love that runs deep is not a feeling that rises and falls with the faithfulness of others. It is the fruit of remaining in the One who first loved us and sent His Son as the Savior of the world. And when these people who love God, who hold heaven in their hearts like this, and they witness shallow love like the sight of people "screwing around with idols and pagan spirituality" while still using Christian language; for them it becomes a crisis of faith. And as it should. The Holy Spirit within them should bear witness within them. There should be an almost visceral response from the body. It should become a crisis of holy grief. A tightening in the spirit, a refusal to make peace with the mixture, a deep concern for the purity of the church and the honor of Christ.

Your witness should respond in this way. That response is right. It is the Spirit guarding the truth and the love that belongs to those who abide. Not to become cynical, but to persevere in pointing them back to the grounds of their faith; the Spirit given, the apostolic testimony to the sent Son, and the open confession of Jesus as the Son of God. And marked by love for one another. These are the things that keep love from becoming either sentimental or brittle. They allow believers to feel the full weight of the compromise around them without losing their own place in the mutual indwelling of God and His people.

The love that runs deep does not ignore the scandal of shallow profession. It grieves it. And then it keeps remaining in proclaiming of the truth.

Early I said the other group was "screwing around with idols and pagan spirituality". It's an image about a screw that keeps turning, driving deeper with every rotation, until it is seated hard and fast and difficult to remove. It's a progressive entanglement and eventual hardening.

I used the words "screwing around" intentionally. In the first-century churches of Asia Minor worship included plenty of casual, careless, and sexually charged pagan practice. Temple prostitution, fertility cults, and the general sexual ethics of the Greco-Roman world. These were not abstract ideas; they were part of the air the people breathed.

Some who claimed the name of Christ did drift into those patterns while still using Christian language. On the surface John’s primary charges are against the secessionists, but there's a root cause that should not be ignored. Because people don't simply wander around in confusion because they don't know any better. They are usually reacting to a sin that hasn't been confessed.

They deny that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, or they doubt the work of The Holy Spirit. They do not love the brothers, and they have gone out from the fellowship. But Scripture does not treat doctrinal departure as if it floats free of the heart. People rarely drift into confusion and compromise simply because they lack information. More often they are already reacting to something they have not yet brought into the light. In the first chapter John insists that if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves, and that if we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us (1:8–9). John knows the root that runs deep in these secessionists. Unconfessed sin hardens. It dulls the conscience. It makes the pure confession of the Son feel costly or inconvenient. It makes sacrificial love for the brothers feel optional. Over time the heart looks for a theology that will accommodate what it is unwilling to surrender. The root is often a refusal to walk in the light.

This does not mean every false teacher is merely covering up some personal immorality, or that every doctrinal error is only a moral problem in disguise. Some deceptions are intellectual, cultural, or downright demonic.

Still, John will not let us separate the two cleanly. The one who remains in God is the one who confesses the Son AND walks in the light. So when people who once shared the table begin mixing Christian language with idols and pagan patterns, the visible compromise is real. Beneath it there is often an older, quieter refusal. A sin that was never confessed, a darkness that was never brought out into the open. In fact, in these days, when the truth comes out, it's celebrated. Not for the confession, but as an appreciation for that lifestyle. The darkness is celebrated. It's "brave" to live in the dark. And not being afraid of the dark is their blessing. What John calls self-deception and walking in darkness is rebranded as authenticity and courage.

That is why the love that runs deep must remain clear-eyed. It grieves the compromise without being surprised by it. It refuses to call darkness light. Not out of fear, it's not a phobia. And it keeps its own footing where John places it. In the Spirit who has been given, in the confession that Jesus is the Son of God, and in the ongoing decision to walk in the light rather than celebrate the dark.

The one who remains does not need to rage or panic. The Spirit already bears witness. The Son has already been sent as Savior of the world. These compromisers cannot change that. It is finished in Christ. That finished reality is what steadies the love that runs deep. It grieves the mixture of Christian language and celebrated darkness without being thrown off its feet. It refuses to call darkness light; not from fear or phobia, but because it has seen the light and knows the difference.

The fracture is real. The compromise is painful. Yet none of it can undo what the Father has done in Christ Jesus.

Amen? 🙏🏼

1 John 4:10
"In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."

How do I know this to be true?

I know this about God because He sent His Son into the world to testify to the truth so that I and anyone who has spiritual discernment can understand His word and know His love.

Without that spiritual appraisal, the cross remains either a tragic story or a religious symbol. With it, the cross is seen for what it is; the decisive demonstration that God loved us first, while we were still sinners, and provided the only sufficient covering for our guilt.

Love is from God. It does not originate in us. And that means the one who truly loves has already been born of God and therefore knows God.

That's not my opinion or interpretation, just a few verses earlier John unambiguously stated:

1 John 4:7
"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God."

Notice the order John keeps.

So the love that proves we have been born of God is not a vague affection or moral effort. It is the love that has first been defined by the cross.

That's right, the cross is love.

And the Son of Man came out of love for that truth. The Father sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. That is how we know what love actually is. You know this is true because the Son came into the world to bear witness to the truth, and the Spirit gives spiritual discernment so that the testimony is received rather than remaining a closed book. Without that work of the Spirit, the cross is only history or symbol. With it, the cross is recognized as the place where God loved us first and covered our guilt.

There is a saying that I understand fully, "the fruit proves the root" because I know plants. Probably better than people I know plants. And it is absolutely true that whatever is going on below the ground is immediately and certainly impacting what's going on above the ground.

This principle is not poetic; it is causal. And we should use caution in the context of spiritual matters. God is first cause. Like that root, nothing above ground happens until something happens below ground.

God is the initiator and man is the respondent. Anyone who teaches man initiates is false. We need to praise, worship, fast, pray, love one another, so that God can respond. This teaching makes man the initiator. And this thinking gets it all backwards.

Friends, you can't love God and thereby the people of God unless God first loves you. You're not predisposed to love anyone in fact. Every child is born a narcissist. They all are completely self-absorbed. And if you've had kids you know I'm right.

But of course they develop a love for those who love on them. And isn't that what John is saying here? You cannot love God, or the people of God, unless God has first loved you. The direction of the love is irreversible. He initiates; we respond. Any other order is false to the text and false to the human condition. A child does not arrive already oriented toward self-giving love. Left to itself, the child is self-absorbed. Love for others develops as the child is first loved, cared for, and known. The capacity to love is awakened and shaped by having first received love.

The natural posture is self-regard. What changes us is that God first loved us and demonstrated that love by sending His Son as the propitiation for our sins. The Spirit then opens our eyes to that reality. Only then does true love for God and for the brothers begin to appear.

The fruit proves the root.

The root is not our decision to start loving. The root is God’s prior, costly love toward us while we were still sinners. Everything else grows from that.

What is that fruit?

"Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." (1 John 4:11)

That is the commandment that follows. The fruit that proves the root is that we now love the brothers and sisters.

Jesus (when instructing us how to pray) does not say, "Forgive us our sins even though we refuse to forgive others."

If you can't find forgiveness in your hearts and minds, how can you say the words:

"...and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who have sinned against us..."

Jesus places those words in our mouths deliberately. The petition He gave us assumes a heart that is already moving in the same direction as the request. When someone prays those words while nursing unforgiveness, they are essentially asking God to treat them the way they are treating others; and that is a terrifying request.

You'd better take a long hard look at the subtle mind games you're playing with yourself when you turn your religion into a sum/gain proposition. Jesus doesn’t leave any ambiguity about this. Right after the prayer He presses the point home.

"For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses."
(Matthew 6:14-15)

Could it be anymore clearer?

Unforgiveness does not merely make the prayer hollow. It places the person outside the very mercy they are asking for. When a person cannot find forgiveness in their heart and mind, the words of the Lord’s Prayer become a kind of self-indictment.

Don't get this exhortation wrong, it's not like I'm saying God is listening to our every petty petition and keeping score. What I'm getting at is, that unforgiving person is taking themselves down a path that ultimately only leads to misery of their own making. Bitterness becomes a kind of spiritual self-imprisonment.

Your unforgiveness is doing damage to your soul, your home, your family, your marriage, your marriagelessness.

The parable in Matthew 18 drives this home even harder. The servant who was forgiven an unpayable debt turns around and chokes his fellow servant over a tiny amount. The king’s response is severe.

"Should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?"

The man who would not forgive is handed over to the jailers. Jesus ends with the warning that the same will be true of anyone who does not forgive "from the heart."

When I run across this unforgiving person it reveals to me that the magnitude of their own forgiven debt has not yet landed on them. The gospel has been heard, but it has not yet broken them open. And I believe one fruit of the Spirit is a broken spirit. That is the place where the Spirit must do His deepest work; not by demanding more willpower, but by taking us back to the cross until the size of our own debt silences every claim we think we have against another.

I don't think a lot of "Christian" people have ever fully come to terms with the true cost of the cross. Chronic resentment and unforgiveness cannot abide in someone who claims to have found redemption in Christ.

Why?

Because redemption is about becoming a new creation. And holding onto bitterness is strongly linked to higher rates of depression and anxiety. The ongoing sense of injustice and the mental replaying of offenses fuels a low mood, hopelessness, irritability, and a general increase in negative effects that touches everything in your life. Bitterness keeps the injury "alive." People mentally rehearse the offense, the perceived unfairness, and what they wish had been different. They are trying to exact a cost. This circular thinking prevents emotional resolution, makes the original event feel more recent than it is, and maintains high emotional charge.

And it doesn't get better with distance or time. Over time, bitterness tends to produce a more hostile interpretive lens. Ambiguous situations are more readily read as threats or slights. Trust erodes, a victim mindset can take root, and the person becomes quicker to feel irritated by ordinary frustrations. The quality of close relationships usually declines.

But that's not all...

Bitterness can lead to withdrawal, short-temperedness, or a pattern of testing others. You're setting yourself up as a judge. And of course others often pull away, which can then reinforce the bitter person’s sense of being alone or misunderstood, creating a self-reinforcing cycle of loneliness.

Chronic embitterment is associated with lower life satisfaction, reduced sense of future possibility, greater perceived stress, and a diminished capacity to enjoy the present.

In clinical practice they might diagnose this as posttraumatic embitterment disorder (PTED). Some laboratory studies show that rehearsing unforgiving thoughts produces measurable increases in cortisol, heart rate, blood pressure, skin flutter, and brow muscle tension compared with forgiving thoughts. And these conditions can put them at risk for cardiovascular and immune changes, sleep disruption, fatigue.

Clearly there's no joy in unforgiveness. And scripture speaks to this condition:

Proverbs 17:22
"A joyful heart is good medicine,
but a crushed spirit dries up the bones."

Psalm 32:3–4
"For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away
through my groaning all day long.
For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;
my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer."

David is not speaking poetically in a vague way. He is reporting what unconfessed sin and unresolved inward turmoil actually did to him.

And yes, chronic unforgiveness is sin.

David's bones wasted away, his strength dried up, the pressure was constant. That spiritual state was eating away at both his soul and body.

"my eye is wasted from grief; my soul and my body also." (Psalm 31:9–10)

David is testifying that a heart under the weight of unresolved guilt, bitterness, or a refusal to deal with what is wrong before God does not stay neatly contained in the "spiritual" category. It consumes. It dries. It wastes. Unforgiveness (and the bitterness it breeds) does not merely make the Lord’s Prayer hollow. It becomes a slow, inward decay that Scripture already named long before anyone measured cortisol or blood pressure.

But the thing David had going for him, the reason God loved him so much, was his capacity to see things God's way. When confronted, he did not harden further. He turned. He didn't avoid the pain or play it off. He faced it from God's grace and perspective.

Psalm 51 (A Contrite Sinner’s Prayer for Pardon)

"Be gracious to me, God, according to Your faithfulness; According to the greatness of Your compassion, wipe out my wrongdoings. Wash me thoroughly from my guilt
And cleanse me from my sin...Hide Your face from my sins And wipe out all my guilty deeds. Create in me a clean heart, God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me...Then I will teach wrongdoers Your ways, And sinners will be converted to You...The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, God, You will not despise."

Read the whole thing, I snipped out what was for me the meat of it.

David does not ask God to help him manage his bitterness or feel better about what others did. He asks for a clean heart and a steadfast spirit; the very opposite of the clenched, judging, self-imprisoned heart. That is the only real way out.

So the question is not first, "How do I find the strength to forgive?"

The deeper question is, "Will I stop defending the bitterness and bring the whole clenched mess to God?"

Ask Him for what David asked for; a clean heart and a steadfast spirit.

Not a managed grudge. Not a polite religious tolerance. But a heart that has been washed and made new.

If you won't?

Until that happens, the words of the Lord’s Prayer will remain a terrifying request.

Bring God your dry bones.

He is still the God who asks, "Can these bones live?"

and then answers with His own breath.

"There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’ All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell." - C.S. Lewis (The Great Divorce)

What do you choose to be?

Not "what do you choose to believe", but "what do you choose to be?"

In matters of life and death, the issue is not about mere intellectual assent or rejection of certain doctrines about Christ; it is whether a person will finally surrender to the One who is Life itself, or insist on remaining the center of their own story.

The Christian claim is not "life after death" in some vague spiritual speculative sense. It is the resurrection of the body and the renewal of the entire created order. It's about far more than one person's destiny. Jesus does not say, "I am the guarantee that your soul will float off somewhere pleasant." He says...

"I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live" (John 11:25)

And if His claim is not true, if Christ himself has not been raised, then our faith in His resurrection is futile and we are still in our sins. And we're still facing a future. A future of entropy for the Universe and ourselves. And no matter what you decide to believe, you will have to face it.

The question is not finally "What propositions do you assent to?" but "What will you be?" Will you be the kind of person who yields the center of the story, or the kind who clings to it?

Ultimately, it's not about doctrinal checklists. It's about freewill, and the direction of the will. In the end EVERY human being gets what he has most deeply chosen to be. Every human being, in the end, receives the kind of existence they want.

What are we choosing between?

Contrary to what the atheists believe, it's not about believing whether God is real or not. It's about the anxiety of fate and death, the anxiety of guilt and condemnation, and the anxiety of emptiness and meaninglessness. It's about anxiety.

Every minute of every human life is a matter of anxiety. And how we choose to cope with it.

Faith in Christ's redemption is the courage to affirm one’s own being granted to them from the Eternal Life-Giver, in spite of these threats that everyone faces. It is the courage to accept that one is accepted, even while the threat of non-being remains real. How we respond to that pressure is already a choice about what kind of existence we are willing to have.

The person who prefers eternal nothing is often trying to silence the anxiety of fate and death by embracing extinction (the atheist stance). Better to cease than to face judgment or endless responsibility. They cannot cope essentially. Can't cope with the idea that some will suffer eternal consequences and some won't. So extinction becomes the preferred horizon.This person is insisting on remaining the center of the story and is trying to master the anxiety of guilt and meaninglessness by self-justification, self-determination, and self-definition.

The Christian claim cuts across all of this. Against the anxiety of fate and death stands the risen Jesus. Against the anxiety of guilt and condemnation stands the cross. Against the anxiety of emptiness and meaninglessness stands reunion, friendship with the living God, eternal forgiveness. The meaning of life is not invented; it is received. This is not first a matter of ideas; it is a matter of the will. It is existential and volitional.

In the end, every human being receives the kind of existence they have most deeply chosen. The anxiety is real. The coping is real. The destinies that follow are also real.

What do you choose to be?

As for me?
And my house?
We shall love the Lord God Almighty.

P.S.
I'm writing on this today not merely as a devotional practice, but for personal reasons. Today we'll inter the cremains of our son "Drew" at our family tree. And I'm reflecting on his life and his choices.

He, like all of us, followed his own path, his own dreams, and made up his own mind. I was there, very there, when he made his ultimate decision. And that moment has deeply touched my soul.

His final word on the anxiety I spoke about earlier was, "okay, pull the plug". With self-determination, and realization, he wanted the effort at delaying the inevitable to stop. It wasn't that he wanted it to work out this way in the end, but he wanted to make the choice and we wanted that for him.

Did he give up hope?

I don't believe so.

Because I know his hope is eternal. I know Drew had faith in the eternal destiny found in the One true God. And so, Drew chose to cling to life, not death. He chose the embrace of the King, not "extinction". And he continued to chose his own path.

When we talked later, I asked Drew if he could share one memory from his life that gave him the greatest joy. He thought for a good long time, and then he said, "mom asked me to pick Tara up at school" (after one of her dance lessons that she hated).

And we're like, "okay?"

And he continued, "and she (Tara, his little sister) spotted me, she shouted "DREW!" and came running into my arms."

I have to admit I choked up and chuckled at the same time. It's those little moments of human love that only children can give that have the most profound sense of joy in our lives. I totally get why he would choose to remember that as his fondest moment. And if you know Drew at all, you know how difficult it was for him to share that emotion. I'm glad he did. He blessed his mom and me and we will always remember that about him.

God bless you Drew. See you on the other side.

1 John 4:1-3
"Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist,which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world."

John earlier said, "this is how we know that he lives in us. We know it by the Spirit he gave us." So how can we tell a false prophet from a genuine message from the Spirit, even when we have the Spirit inside and inspiring our life?

Read it.

Stick to the Word of God.

Mainly God said what He meant. For the most part the scriptures are not difficult to grasp. If you want to know God, He's already given you everything you need to know. There's absolutely zero need for new New Testaments.

And the confess it.

You want to test that new revelation? Make it through God's Word in the name of Jesus Christ.

Go ahead. Say in His Name.

If it's right and holy it will hold up and the Spirit will bless it. For blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

The test John gives is not mystical or subjective. It is public, clear, and centered on the person of Christ. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. Every spirit that will not confess Him is not from God. Clear and concise. Bring it into the light of God’s written Word in the name of Jesus Christ. Say that it is in agreement with salvation found in Christ, and if it's true it will be found true. But if it cannot profess Christ as sovereign God, it's of the world and not of God. It's of the spirit of the air.

Anything that softens, redefines, or denies the real incarnation; the eternal Son truly becoming flesh, living, dying, and rising as the God-man, fails the test. No amount of sincerity, emotion, or spiritual-sounding language can rescue it. The Spirit of truth does not contradict the truth He has already given.

Yeah but...how do we know?

Thankfully we don't have to wonder for long. John shares, what is for me, probably the MOST profound and precious word just a few verses later.

1 John 4:7
"Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God."

Here is the living proof that the confession is real. Love that comes from God is not something we work up. It flows from the new birth. The one who truly confesses the incarnate Christ will also love the brothers. The same Spirit who leads us to acknowledge that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is the Spirit who produces love for those who belong to Him.

Okay, well that's all well and good but take a look around at all the love. Even nature alone is completely brutal.

So, where is the love?

The Holy Spirit has that answer, already given.

Like I said earlier, the scriptures are clear and not at all difficult to grasp, because they have already anticipated these questions and have already written out the answers.

Once again, look a few verses further:

1 John 4:9-10
"This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins."

Full circle. Here we are again at the name of He who is our Lord and blessing. The test of the spirits, the proof of the new birth, and the demonstration of true love all meet in the same place.

Jesus Christ, the eternal Son who came in the flesh, lived, died as the atoning sacrifice, and rose again.

Confess Him.

Say it! Say it!

Love the brothers.

And now rest in the love that was shown when the Father sent the Son.

Amen 🙏🏼

1 John 2:27
"And as for you, the anointing which you received from Him remains in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you remain in Him."

What John is not saying is that mankind does not need teachers among men, what he is saying is the teaching the teachers teach is from the Holy Spirit through the spiritual gift of teaching. We cannot learn the things of the Spirit from the Word of God without the help of the Holy Spirit.

Honestly, it might be true to say Sola Spiritua in addition to Sola Scriptura. Because you can't have one without the other. These two, The Spirit, and The Word, are inseparably linked in the life of the church and the believer.

John is writing against antichrists and false teachers who claimed special, superior knowledge (the proto-gnostics). And he is not abolishing the ordinary means of teaching in the church. Scripture itself establishes teachers as a gift of the risen Christ. The apostles taught, the elders taught, and the church was commanded to hold to the apostolic pattern of sound words. And day by day the power of the Holy Spirit is working within us, transforming the occupation of our hearts and minds. This work of the Spirit is sufficient to guard the believer from being led astray by those who would deny the Son.

The Spirit does not teach something other than or alongside the apostolic Word. He teaches in and through that Word, confirming it, illuminating it, and making it alive to the heart. The point of Sola Scriptura was never to deny the Spirit’s ongoing work; it was to insist that every claim of the Spirit; whether from teachers, councils, traditions, or private impressions, must be tested by the public, sufficient, written Word He inspired.

The Spirit is the divine Teacher who makes the Word effectual. The Word is the objective, fixed standard by which every teaching, including claims about what the Spirit is saying, is measured. The danger arises only when teachers claim superior spiritual knowledge through some form of spiritual experience that is not backed up by The Word. John is saying that the true anointing does not lead away from the Word already received; it enables the believer to remain in it.

Yes, that indwelling work of The Spirit (the anointing) is real, necessary, and sufficient to keep the sheep from the voice of the stranger. But it is the Spirit through the Word, never the Spirit apart from or above the Word.

And so, what is it that The Spirit works at teaching?

1. "Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness." (1 John 3:4)

2. "For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we are to love one another...The one who does not love remains in death." (1 John 3:11, 13b)

3. "Little children, let’s not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth." (1 John 3:18)

4. "This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us. The one who keeps His commandments remains in Him, and He in him. We know by this that He remains in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us." (1 John 3:23-24)

This spiritual knowledge is not some product of the private mystical priestly elite system. This knowledge isn't exclusive to a reserved class, available only to the initiated, except to say that this is the reality for all who are in Him. All who are of the priesthood of all believers.

John answers that the anointing has been given to you, to ordinary believers, and that it remains in them. The knowledge it teaches is the common inheritance of all who are in Christ.

But don't become haughty. With this common knowledge comes great responsibility. The one who gains this knowledge is now responsible for keeping those things; not practicing lawlessness, practicing love, and holding onto faith in Christ Jesus.

Teachers still teach, elders still shepherd, and the church still needs the ordinary means of grace. But none of them stand between the believer and the Spirit’s direct work through the Scriptures. This is why John can say both "you have no need for anyone to teach you" and continue to teach them throughout the letter. The Spirit’s teaching does not abolish human teachers; it makes every believer a responsible hearer who can test every teaching by the Word and by the anointing that confirms it. This is the reality for all who are in Him.

This is something I truly miss from my original church home. We had a practice of gathering for Sunday breakfast with the Pastor after services to fellowship and critique the Pastor's sermon.

You see, our weekly Bible study (on Mondays), would explore the scriptures that were scheduled for the church service on the following Sunday. We followed the common lectionary. And it was a wonderful way to learn from both the Word and from the Spirit at work in everyone's life. In those days The Spirit was pouring out revelation in me like it was going out of style. But I see now, this wasn't special revelation, this was the common Word of God, available to every believer. Those revelations weren't contrary or anything like unique to me and "my truth". It wasn't new knowledge it was merely new to me. Everything I learned came from out of The Word and therefore could be found by another as a back-check.

My prayer is that every church could experience this form. A congregation that studies the upcoming texts together during the week, then gathers after the sermon to test and discuss what was preached, is practicing the priesthood of all believers in concrete form. The pastor still teaches and shepherds. The people still receive the Word through ordinary means. But no one stands between the believer and the Spirit’s direct work through the Scriptures. Every member is treated as a responsible hearer who can examine the teaching by the Word and by the anointing that confirms it.

When the Word is opened in community, when believers come expecting the Spirit to illuminate what is written, and when there is freedom to test everything against the text itself, the common inheritance of the anointing becomes visible and active.

A church that makes space for that kind of mutual engagement with the text; studying ahead, hearing the Word preached, then returning to it together in fellowship and honest conversation, honors both the gift of teachers and the anointing that remains in every believer. It treats the people of God as those who have the Spirit and the Word, not as those who must simply receive without examination. That practice does not require a perfect church or a perfect past. It simply requires a serious commitment to the inseparability of Spirit and Word, and a willingness to let ordinary believers do the work of testing and remaining in Him through The Spirit.

I thank God for my time at that little country congregationalist church. And now I find it hilarious as well to think about such a true to God and the Spirit place existing within a UCC church. God truly works through even the false teachers. Though the synod is lost to worldly ideologies, God still teaches some like me through His Word by the power of The Holy Spirit.

God is not limited by the failures of institutions. He has always known how to teach His people by the Word and the Spirit even when the larger structures around them are compromised. God used that imperfect setting to form something real in me. He still does the same work wherever the Word is opened and the Spirit is expected. The anointing remains. The Word remains. And ordinary believers are still called to remain in Him by both.

Amen 🙏🏼

1 John 3:5
"You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin."

1 John 3:8
"The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil."

Same event.

Two complementary purposes.

The removal of sin and the undoing of the devil’s works are not two separate missions; they are the same mission seen from two angles. The moral seriousness of the Christian life is grounded in this appearing of the sinless Son who both removes sin and destroys the devil’s works. Therefore the children of God are being made new. Not grounded in human resolve or religious effort. Therefore the practical force is clear; if this is why He appeared, then the believer who continues in the practice of sin is living as though the purpose of the incarnation has failed. And it can be frustrating for one who is anointed in the Spirit to have this truth and be in communion with some who do not.

The one who sees the weight of these verses, and who lives under their force, to walk in regular communion with people who treat the same truths as optional, theoretical, or secondary is extremely disheartening. John himself lived in that tension. The letter is written precisely because some were claiming fellowship with God while denying the moral seriousness of the appearing. Some said they had no sin. Some continued in practice of sin while claiming to know Him. Some separated themselves. John does not soft-pedal the dissonance. He names it, distinguishes the children of God from the children of the devil, and still calls the faithful to remain in the truth and in love.

Now, why do you suppose John wrote to "the faithful" to remain in the truth and in love? Is it possible that these "faithful" are in danger from being led astray? If so, how. Aren't these them who have the Spirit securing their bond with the Lord?

I believe it's obvious in the testimony of every apostle, who have written their witness for us to read even now, that there is a danger that even the most faithful followers face. It is clear by these writings that every believer still lives in a contested field where deception is active and the pull toward compromise is constant. No one is invulnerable. No one is immune to deception. Even though they study in the Spirit, and remain in their faith, they are susceptible to deception.

The Apostles write as men who themselves know both the reality of the Spirit’s sealing and the reality of the contested field. They never present the believer as invulnerable. They present the believer as secured and still required to watch, remain, test, and hold fast.

"The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." (Matthew 26:41)

"The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons." (1 Timothy 4:1)

Jesus does not say the spirit is unwilling. And He does not say the flesh is sovereign over the human will. He simply states the condition under which even the most earnest disciples live; a real willingness that can still be overpowered by weakness if they do not watch and pray.

Jesus' warning was not theoretical. Within hours they all fled from him.

These warnings are not addressed only to the false professors from the start.
The same Spirit who seals, anoints, and teaches is the One who warns that some among all will abandon the faith. This should dispel every notion that a follower cannot end up in a fallen state or experience more than their faith can sustain. Jesus, Paul, Peter, John, and Jude all speak as though the danger is genuine and the outcome is not automatic.

Jesus and the apostles speak of a living relationship that must be lived in. They treat perseverance as something the believer must actually do, empowered by the Spirit, rather than something that happens to the believer irrespective of response. At the same time there is a tension between assurance and assumption.

The natural conclusion is there is a confidence that the One who began the work is faithful, that His sheep are held in His hand, and that those who go out ultimately show they were not of the fold. The tension is left unresolved in the text. And it is not a problem to be solved. It is the condition under which the church has been established, left to cope with and in which they should live between the first appearing and the second.

There is real confidence, and real tension. No one is absolved from this fact. Scriptures refuse to let that confidence become presumption, and they refuse to let the warnings become grounds for despair. We must live inside the interval. The Son has already appeared to take away sins and to destroy the works of the devil. The children of God are already being made new. And the contested field remains contested until He appears again. It is the shape of discipleship until the day we see Him as He is.

We pray for it.
We watch for it.
We walk in it.
We run from everything that suggests otherwise.

That is how the tension is lived out rather than resolved.

It's a little like TRT. Some men can experience the benefits of testosterone replacement if they have reduced testosterone systems. Yet, at the same time these artificial means can condition the body to not naturally produce testosterone, so that if the supplemental testosterone is interrupted the body is no longer prepared to produce even reduced levels anymore.

Supplemental testosterone can restore energy, strength, and clarity when natural production has declined. But the body is adaptive. The cure can become a problem.

Spiritually, something parallel can happen. Certain forms of teaching, church structures and doctrines, assurance language, or even disciplined religious habits can supply real benefits. They can steady a man, clarify truth, and protect him for a season. But if those externals begin to function as a substitute for direct, ongoing dependence on the living Christ; if they quietly condition the heart to rely on the religious prop rather than on the One who appeared to take away sins and destroy the works of the devil, then the "natural" capacity to abide, to watch, to test, and to remain can atrophy. In other words, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.

The spirit can remain willing while the flesh, conditioned by reliance on secondary things, grows weaker in the very capacities that matter most. What was meant to support living dependence can, over time, train the heart to lean on the support instead of on the One the support was meant to point toward. This is why the apostles are so jealous for direct attachment to Christ Himself. Teaching scriptures, building structure, sound doctrines, assurance rooted in the finished work, and disciplined habits are all good gifts. They are not the enemy. The danger arises only when any of them begins to function as a functional substitute for ongoing, personal dependence on the Son who appeared to take away sins and to destroy the works of the devil.

When that substitution occurs, the atrophy is real. The willingness is still real, but the trained capacity to live from the Source has diminished. And one profound symptom is a sort of spiritual brain fog.

The willingness may still be present. The person may still affirm the right doctrines and feel a residual desire for God. But clarity dulls. Discernment slows. The edge of spiritual perception blunts. The believer loses spiritual nerve. What should be present as steady spiritual virility becomes passivity, hesitation, and a dulled edge. The believer is neutered.

The only recovery is the return to the Source Himself. Everything else must be put back in its secondary place, or the atrophy will continue.

1 John 2:12-14
"I am writing to you, little children, because your sins have been forgiven you on account of His name. I am writing to you, fathers, because you know Him who has been from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I have written to you, children, because you know the Father. I have written to you, fathers, because you know Him who has been from the beginning. I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God remains in you, and you have overcome the evil one."

The apostle John is stacking up assurances for people who already belong to God, in the face of antichrists and the pull of the world. Probably young in the faith (baby Christians). The little Children, the fathers, and the young men know the eternal One, the same One the antichrists deny. They know He has forgiven them their sins. This knowing is relational and effective. It is the kind of knowledge that has already produced forgiveness, strength, and victory. That is the same dynamic Jesus describes in John 15; the branch abides, the word abides, and fruit (growth) follows.

Is knowing God has forgiven you enough?

My instinct is to say emphatically YES! But then my pragmatic and critically thinking mind remembers that we do not live in a perfect world. When humanity comes to the end of its resources it will develop formulas and programs to reproduce repeatable solutions that seem to help humanity deal with the impact of the world's imperfections.

Conflict happens. Overcoming the enemy of our souls never ends in this world. Temptations are ongoing. And the word of God never fails to resolve those struggles when employed rightly by a spirit who is indwelled by the Holy Spirit. But there are many times when a person gets tripped up by the enemy. And in those times, just knowing who God is, what He's done or is doing, and how you are to respond can become twisted into something unholy by the lusts of the eyes, the flesh and the pride of life. Knowledge can be twisted; turned into presumption, or into a cold orthodoxy that no longer produces obedience and love. John himself warns against this throughout the letter. Claiming to know God while walking in darkness, or while hating a brother, is a lie.

So is it enough to know you're forgiven when you're trying to protect your soul from the evil one?

Knowing is never mere data. When someone is tripped up, the remedy is not a new formula layered on top of the old knowledge. It is returning to the same realities we first learned, returning to our first Love. The blood that cleanses, the Advocate with the Father, the word that abides, the One who is from the beginning. The overcomer is not the person who never falls; it is the person who, by the word and by faith in the Son, rises again and keeps walking in the light.

Naïve optimism?

No, but vulnerable? Yes.

When you're "walking" you need to watch your step. You'd better or you might find you've wandered off into a pit.

When the gospel first went out, for a time it got stuck. It was stuck in Jerusalem, mostly by fear and confusion. Eventually these eyewitnesses went out into the world. Spreading the Word into all the known world. And establishing faith communities wherever they went.

In time, after the apostles had moved on or worse, the "church" began to be influenced and infiltrated by some who were fellow believers but also motivated by their own self-interests. This is exactly the situation John is writing into. Some had gone out from the church but were never really of it. Others stayed and tried to pull people away from the simple truth about Jesus.

One well known example is seen in the story of Irenaeus of Lyons. He was an early church leader who dealt with this exact problem. People in the faith communities were claiming a special "knowledge" of God that twisted the simple truth about Jesus.

Irenaeus grew up in Asia Minor (modern Turkey). He studied under Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna. Polycarp had been a disciple of the Apostle John himself. So this was a very close direct connection to the firsthand accounts of the acts of the apostles.

By the late 100s the church was no longer under the direct oversight of the apostles. Some teachers had risen up who used Christian language but taught something very different. Especially the system of Valentinus and his followers (gnostics).

They taught things like, ordinary Christians had only a basic, public teaching. That they themselves possessed a higher, secret "knowledge" (gnosis) that unlocked the real meaning of Scripture and salvation. They also taught that the material world was created by a lesser, ignorant god (the Demiurge), not by the true high God. And that the Old Testament was not given by the most high God.

In their system this lesser god was frequently identified with the God of the Old Testament. So the Old Testament itself was treated as coming from an inferior being, not from the true Father whom Jesus revealed.

This is exactly the kind of twisted "knowing" John had already confronted. It used the language of knowing God, forgiveness, and spiritual superiority, yet it denied the real incarnation, the real Creator, and the real continuity of God’s work from the beginning. The same work Jesus himself often referred to in regard to Himself.

These "teachers" turned knowledge into an elite system rather than a living relationship that produces love, obedience, and endurance. Irenaeus answered these men by going back to the simple, public realities handed down from the apostles. the same realities John had already stacked up for the churches in 1 John 2:12-14.

Irenaeus exposed their false hidden knowledge. He showed its incoherent messages. And he rooted the true faith in the apostles teachings. Irenaeus simply takes that same fight into the next generation and answers it with careful, public, apostolic clarity.

So we see in this the need for a discovery and rediscovery of truth. For clarity and exhortation. The same clear word must be spoken again and again; not because it has changed, but because the pressure to twist it never stops. Clarity and exhortation remain necessary so that what was known from the beginning continues to remain in us, and so that the victory already given does not get lost in systems that promise something higher while actually leading away from Christ into greater orthodox, elite, cult-like systems.

Because, if left to its own, the promise of something higher will always assert itself in the form of many idols. From the veneration of relics and men and women of renown, to the politicalized landowners who fashioned the church into its own empires of faith. And these systems will strangle the gospel in their industries. Maybe even for thousands of years.

The warning is clear. The desire for a "higher" way easily turns into new forms of dependence; on special people, special objects, special power structures, instead of remaining with the simple, living knowledge of the Father and the Son that John already declared sufficient.

Thank God that even though there is a vast history of these heresies, there always remains a remnant that God keeps for Himself.

Amen 🙏🏼

Proverbs 29:25
"The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe."

Fear of rejection, what Scripture often calls the fear of man, is one of the drivers of self-deception. And this fear usually doesn't announce itself as rebellion. Instead it presents itself as wisdom, compassion, relevance, or "loving people well." The self deceived person begins to reshape what they will publicly affirm (or privately tolerate) so that the group, the culture, the institution, or the important people in their life will not withdraw their approval. And over time this reshaping of reality becomes internal. What started as a calculated silence or a softened edge becomes a new settled conviction. It becomes an internal captivity.

This is why it seems so difficult, almost impossible to reach them with true wisdom and understanding. Once these people have adjusted their speech or their doctrine to remain acceptable from within this tribe of thought, honesty becomes too costly to accept. It'll take too large a toll on their tolerance levels.

Once inside, "the fear of man" begins the quiet work of editing truth and wisdom. Speech is adjusted first. Then private judgments. Then the categories of belief themselves. What was once recognized as a small compromise is slowly reclassified as maturity. The person is no longer merely acting to avoid rejection; they have come to believe that the adjusted position is the true and loving one. At that point the captivity is fully internal, and near impossible to escape.

The cost of honesty is no longer just social friction. It is the dismantling of an entire internal framework that now feels like identity, belonging, and moral high ground. Now confession would mean a kind of death. A loss of standing, loss of community, loss of the carefully constructed self that has been affirmed by the group. Most people will tolerate a whole bunch of this cognitive dissonance before they will accept that total cost.

Scripture describes this condition:

Jeremiah 17:9
"The heart is more deceitful than all else. And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?"

People will intentionally suppress the truth...

Romans 1:18
"The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness"

...while still using religious language.

They'll surround themselves with coconspirators, cohabitants, strongholds, and imaginations, teachers who tell them what their itching ears want to hear.

2 Timothy 4:3
"For the time will come when they will not tolerate sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires"

The result, a fortified religious self-deception that can quote the Bible while resisting its authority. A self deception that calls compromise faithfulness.

All this stemming from the fear of man that lays this snare of untruth. An internal bondage that follows once a person has traded the fear of the Lord for the fear of rejection by the collective. Safety is now only found on the other side of that trade-off.

Proverbs 29:25b
"...But one who trusts in the Lord will be protected."

The proverb does not only diagnose the snare; it immediately points to the only way of escape. Breaking the bonds of this internal captivity is hard, it is real, and rarely painless, because the captivity was built to protect against a loss of approval. The heart does not usually release what it has defended.

The first mercy is straight talk. The painful clarity that what felt like wisdom, compassion, or "loving people well" was actually the fear of rejection governing one's conscience. This is the beginning of taking arms against the spiritual battle.

The fear of man is displaced only by a greater fear; the fear of the Lord.

Exposure alone is not yet freedom. The heart that has long defended the compromise must now release what it has protected. This rarely happens in a single confession. It's usually a series of costly turns.

It takes practice. This is not a feeling that is worked up; but must become a new settled preference. Each time the person chooses to speak or stand with what God has said, even when it costs them their standing, belonging, or peace within the tribe, the old fear snare loosens its grip.

Matthew 10:28
"do not be afraid of those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."

The self deception that found its identity in remaining acceptable must be replaced with a renewed identity of self in Christ's perspective. Only a heart that rests in irreversible acceptance by God can stop needing the reversible acceptance of people.

This turn is not regret, it doesn’t mean "feeling sorry". The Greek word as it is used in scripture is Metanoia, which means a change of mind, a turning or transformation of one’s understanding and perception. Not a second thought or changed opinion, but in scripture it takes on a heavier weight. It is decisive. A determined turning from one governing allegiance and way of seeing reality to another.

Mark 1:15
"The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent (metanoeite) and believe in the gospel."

The call is not to merely feel differently, but to think differently and therefore live differently. To honor God with your whole life. In your home, in your family, in your community, and in your work. The mind is turned, the governing assumptions are overturned, and a new trajectory follows.

The mind is changed. The will is redirected. And the affections will follow. The change from the fear of man then shifts to the fear of the Lord. Not a cringing terror of His rule and authority, but understanding that He sees your ways as a divide between you and He. The fear of the Lord then is seen as a settled, reverent awe that recognizes God’s holy claim and refuses to treat His approval as secondary.

But more importantly, your understanding of God's perspective regarding you becomes a valuable insight that makes this change fully applicable. The self-deception that found its identity in remaining acceptable must be replaced with a renewed identity of self in Christ’s perspective. Knowing that God sees you as a pearl of great value; purchased at the highest cost; undercuts the old need for the reversible acceptance of people. The believer’s worth is no longer measured by the tribe’s fluctuating approval but by the fixed valuation of the One who sought and purchased at infinite cost.

Matthew 13:45–46
"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls, and upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold everything that he had and bought it."

That Shepherd left His obedient ninety nine sheep and sought to rescue the one who had wandered off. And He didn't just find you and set you loose to jump right back into your own ways again, the One who valued you enough to come after you is the One whose approval now defines you. He gives you a new heart (Ezekiel 36:26) and a Helper (John 14:16, 26) to keep your understanding straight.

From this point going forward the change of mind called metanoia is never self-sustained. The same Spirit who first convicts of the fear of man and the self-deception it produced is the One who continues the work. He convicts. He exposes the moments when the old snares tighten again. He illuminates. And He empowers.

The Spirit builds something stronger than spiritual death. A life defined by the approval of the One who sought, purchased, and now indwells His own.

Amen 🙏🏼

1 John 2:28
"Now, little children, remain in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not draw back from Him in shame at His coming."

You've heard about abiding in Christ. You've heard that you have an advocate who is making intercession for you. You've heard there is One God and One intermediator. You've heard that there is an infinite Grace that bridges the separation between mankind and God, Grace that reached down, not something that tries to reach heaven from the finite world. And you've heard that light came into the world and the world would not come into the light. There is still this uncertainty. Still this doubt.

John writes to people who already know the Advocate, already know the one Mediator, already know that grace came down rather than being climbed up to, already know that the true Light entered the world and was largely refused. And still he says; remain. Because even with all of that truth in place, the heart can still draw back.

Why? Why the fear and shame?

This is what happens when we have drifted into a functional independence. Still orthodox in our confession, still talking about the Advocate and the Mediator, yet no longer remaining in Him. The difference is not information, it's location.

The Light really did come, and the world really did prefer darkness. None of that is in question. What remains in question is whether we are presently abiding; whether the life of the Son is the atmosphere we are living in, or whether we have stepped just far enough outside it that His appearing would expose our gaps.

Doubt does not always mean unbelief. Sometimes it is simply the honest record of a heart that still feels the pull of the old world while trying to live in the new one. That heart is still too close to the world, still hasn't come to the end of itself. God's love is still not perfected in this one.

John’s counsel is not "try harder to feel confident." It is "remain." Stay where the Advocate already is. Stay under the covering of the one Mediator. Stay in the light that was refused by the world but given to you. The confidence is the fruit of that remaining, not its precondition.

It's strange this fear and doubt. Especially when every example Christ lived out shows Grace that has compassion and love for those who still struggle with remaining confidently in Him. The uncertainty they still feel is not proof that the truths have failed. It is evidence that the remaining is still a living act, not a settled achievement. They must keep remaining. The shame is not for those who struggle; it is for those who stop loving God's Son.

Jesus didn't shame the father who cried, "I believe; help my unbelief."

He doesn’t discard Peter after his threefold denial of knowing him.

Jesus does not leave Thomas in his demand for proof. He restores him, he re-commissions him, and he draws him near to himself.

The pattern is consistent. The One who will appear is the same One who already showed Himself gentle with those whose remaining was incomplete, hesitant, or interrupted.

Think about this. The first man, Adam, who was responsible for the cursed world we now all live in; want did he do when he sinned?

When God came into the garden again, looking for Adam, calling his name. What did Adam do?

Adam hid himself from God.

When the Lord God came walking in the garden in the cool of the day and called his name, Adam did not run toward Him. He did not fall on his face in repentance. He did not step into the open. He hid among the trees.

And he eventually (having been caught in his shame) said, "I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself."

That is the original pattern of drawing back in shame. The approach of God did not change. The same voice that had spoken the world into being and walked with the man in unbroken fellowship was still calling. What changed was the man’s location and the condition of his heart.

Sin had introduced exposure, and exposure produced fear, and fear produced hiding. Functional independence had already begun. Adam was still "orthodox" enough to know whose voice it was; he simply no longer wanted to be found by it. The trees became his covering. The distance became his safety. And the walk of shame was born; the instinct to draw back whenever the Holy One approaches.

Now let's contrast this story with another. Another man in the trees. Another moment when the Holy One draws near. But the response is the opposite of Adam’s.

Zacchaeus does not hide among the leaves to avoid being seen. He climbs the sycamore precisely so he can see Him better. Short in stature, compromised in his worldly reputation, wealthy by his injustices, yet he still positions himself for an encounter he has no right to expect.

When Jesus stops, looks up, and calls him by name; "Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today", the man does not shrink back in shame. He comes down at once and receives Him joyfully.

The tree that once served as Adam’s hiding place becomes, for Zacchaeus, the place of revelation. And once the call comes, he leaves the tree behind. He does not stay elevated, half-visible, managing the distance. He comes down into the open, into the presence, into the house where the Son of Man has chosen to stay. He welcomed Jesus right on into his own home.

That is a different walk of shame.

The shame of his past is real; extortion, collaboration, isolation.

Yet when the approach of Jesus happens, the reflex is not to draw back but to hurry down. The confidence is not self-generated; it is the fruit of being found and called. Jesus does not wait for Zacchaeus to clean himself up first. He invites Himself in while the man is still in the tree, still compromised, still short. And the result is not exposure that destroys, but exposure that restores.

This isn't some tricky twist of the narrative by me, Jesus literally says it:

"Today salvation has come to this house…For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost."

Adam hid and the fellowship was broken. Zacchaeus came down and the fellowship was restored. Both men faced the approach of God. One drew back in fear because of nakedness. The other hurried into the open because he was sought.

Do you know you are what you sought?

The sum of who and what you are is not what you've done or how you've chosen to be, you are who you sought. Who you sought fills your voids. Heals your brokenness. Fills the cracks and scars and makes them new. He does that. Not you. The Divine within you does that.

You are not the sum of what you have done or the sum of the ways you have tried to cover yourself. You are the one who has been sought. Zacchaeus climbed the tree because something in him still wanted to see the One who was passing by. Adam hid among the trees because something in him no longer wanted to be seen. The difference was not moral achievement. It was direction of desire. One man used the tree to draw nearer; the other used it to keep distance. And the One who came walking by still called both by name.

Think long and hard about that.

When Jesus says, "The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost," He is describing the entire story. The seeking is prior. The call is prior. The invitation into the house is prior.

The voids are not filled by the intensity of your seeking. They are filled by the One who found you in the middle of it. He makes the scars the places where His own life now shows through. It is not a divine principle inside you operating on its own. It is the living Christ, the Advocate, the one Mediator, remaining in those who remain in Him. There is no ritual or venerated relic that will reproduce this. No sacrament or worship system of sacrifice will generate this regeneration.

Conclusion:
Trying to do those religious things is like climbing back into the trees. Do not climb back into the trees to manage the distance. Do not hide behind your orthodoxy while the life itself is held at arm’s length. The confidence that will stand at His appearing is the confidence of those who have already come down, already welcomed Him in, and already learned that the only safe place is to be found.

The walk of shame ends when the sought one stops hiding and starts remaining.

Amen 🙏🏼

1 John 2:18-23
"Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared; from this we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be evident that they all are not of us. But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know. I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie is of the truth. Who is the liar except the one who denies that Jesus is the [Messiah] Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son."

Spiritual conflict marks every age. This is the one constant truth. It's reality that spiritual deception has been among humanity from the beginning and has followed the course of human history ever since. It is not a late development or a modern novelty. It is the unbroken atmosphere of a fallen world from the moment the serpent spoke and the women listened in the garden.

The enemy speaks peace where there is no peace, and he has none to give. Through his idols he claims allegiance due only to the living God, and through his teachings he promises life while leading people away from the Source of life. And now this ancient liar has focused himself on the incarnate Son's bride.

The same voice that once said "Did God actually say…?" now concentrates his efforts on redefining or diminishing the incarnate Son. Using familiar methods; departure from the truth, a subtle redefinition of Christ, appeals to a higher, hidden, or deeper knowledge yet to be revealed to a select few.

This spiritual deception is not an occasional disruption; it is the ongoing weather of this age. But this reality should not produce panic in those who know the truth. Instead it should produce vigilance, humility, and a deeper clinging to the One who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. How are you going to fear destruction from the one who cannot destroy your soul?

After-all, no matter the age, the one who can kill the body is still limited; the One who holds both body and soul is not. That is why vigilance does not have to become panic, and why humility does not have to become timidity. John's not writing to create anxiety about whether we belong to Christ; he's writing to confirm that those who have the Spirit already know the truth and are therefore already equipped to recognize the lie.

This isn't some heroic achievement or bravado; it's just the normal posture of those who have been taught by the Holy One.

So, who are these Antichrist's John is speaking about?

What do we know?
"They went out from us" (2:19)

Who's they?

Obviously they were among the followers of Christ, but their departure revealed that they "were not of us." And they tried to claim a special knowledge (gnosis), forming their own circles of supposed superior enlightenment. Hidden knowledge reserved only for their initiated.

The foundation for their claim is this idea that there is a separation between the human Jesus and the divine Christ-spirit. Matter is regarded as inferior or evil; therefore a true incarnation, God truly becoming flesh, was unthinkable. So the only way they can work it out in their minds is to say that Jesus only seemed to have a physical body and only appeared to have suffered and died.

And even accounts such as the transfiguration, in their reasoning, can give credibility to their claim; when clearly the human Jesus can transform or transcend space/time/matter at will (pre-resurrection). A real, witnessed transformation of Jesus’ appearance could (in their minds), in theory, be twisted to suggest that the "true" Christ was essentially a spiritual being who only temporarily inhabited or appeared in material form.

It's as if the divine spirit (in their understanding) can come and go, separate from the human body. This led them to believe the divine Christ-spirit came upon the man Jesus at his baptism and departed before the crucifixion.

But clearly the apostolic teaching cuts the other way. For the apostles, transfiguration is presented as the temporary unveiling of the glory that belongs to the incarnate Son. This is the same Jesus whose body the disciples had touched, whose voice they had heard, and who would later rise bodily from the dead. And Peter directly appeals to precisely this as confirmation of the historical, bodily reality of Jesus (2 Peter 1:16–18). These eye witnesses who were taught directly from the Source Himself never suggested a dualistic nature in the Man-Christ. Which is why John now explains that when they left, it became clear that they had never truly shared the life and truth that bound the community together. Their departure did not create their falsehood; it exposed it.

What they took with them was a claim to deeper insight. And there's the true danger of the AntiChrist. If the divine can come and go, appear and disappear from the human man Jesus, then by default the divine can reappear in others. With "other" supernatural powers and knowledge. Special abilities given to special people.

Under this new system of reasoning, the door is opened to successive "christs," new anointed figures, special vessels who claim unique access to divine power and hidden knowledge.

Sound familiar?

I see a direct correlation to many modern and not so modern but historic entities within the "Church".

Once the divine Christ-spirit is treated as something that can descend upon a human vessel and later depart, the incarnation is no longer unique and final. It becomes a pattern that can, in principle, be repeated. The uniqueness of Jesus is relativized. The finality of His coming is softened. Authority shifts from the public, historical, bodily Son of God to those who claim a fresh or higher manifestation of the same spirit. A sort of Magisterium is then possible. A kind of standing teaching authority is almost necessary.

And that's the entire point of John's letter. John’s letter stands against precisely this sort of teaching and movement. John is saying the truth is not progressive in the sense of needing later, higher clarification that ordinary believers cannot access. It is the truth already given, already known, already guarded by the anointing the Holy One which has been poured out on the whole community.

"You have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know."

The Spirit does not create a spiritual hierarchy that places some above the common confession; He confirms the same apostolic testimony to every believer who abides in the Son.

This is why the departure of the false teachers was so decisive. They did not leave merely with a different emphasis on secondary matters. They left with a version of Christ who could, in principle, be succeeded or re-manifested in them. And of course, therefore they claim to have a deeper insight that ordinary Christians lacked.

That claim of deeper insight is the living nerve of the antichrist spirit John is exposing. The truth they carried with them when they left the apostles was no longer the once-for-all, flesh-and-blood Son, but a transferable divine presence that could relocate into new vessels. And this has been the Devil's tactic from the beginning.

New teachers, new prophets, new apostles, new claimants of special knowledge and power. And for more than two thousand years now there has been a myriad of different AntiChrist figures and movements that have cropped up. Some arise inside the visible church and then separate; others form parallel movements that still use the language of Christ while quietly relocating authority to themselves. And then they turn their attention to those who claim the Holy Spirit's word is in them.

That is always their target.

Their target is the ordinary believer who simply rests in the public Word and the Spirit’s anointing. For them the Scriptures become a problem. Those who say, "The Holy Spirit has already given us the truth in the apostolic testimony, and we know it," stand in the way of their claim to deeper insight. So the Antichrist claimants often turn against the Bible-believing Christian; dismissing them as unenlightened, immature, or lacking the higher revelation now available only through their specially anointed priests, prophetesses, and spiritual elites. Scripture itself becomes a problem, because the apostolic testimony is fixed, public, and sufficient; not open to relativism.

The last hour is marked by this pressure. Yet the safeguard has not changed. The truth has already been given. The anointing has already been poured out on the whole community. Those who have the Son have the Father also. And The Spirit governs that community. All that is required is remaining in what they've heard from the beginning. John does not arm the church with a complicated system for tracking every new movement. He confirms what believers already possess and calls them to abide in it.

The One who holds both body and soul has not left His people dependent on later revelations or specially enlightened intermediaries.

He has given them the Son.

He who came in the flesh, once for all.

And with the Son, the Father.

And the Spirit has sealed this in those who abide in the truth, in the Word of God.

And to this end John later adds, "As for you, the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie, just as it has taught you, abide in him" (2:27).

It is not a private mystical experience that floats free from Scripture. It doesn't come out of a hat, or as a result of politically motivated councils. It is not a higher revelation that updates or corrects the apostolic testimony. It is the Spirit’s own teaching ministry that confirms, illuminates, and applies the truth already given in the public Word.

And what about those who claim to have "given" us that public Word?

The public Word was not ultimately "given" to the church by later teachers, councils, or institutional structures. It was given by the Son through His chosen apostles. The apostles were eyewitnesses and authorized messengers. What they heard, saw, and touched concerning the Word of life, they proclaimed (1 John 1:1–3). That proclamation; fixed in their conversations, their teaching and later in the written Scriptures, is the public, apostolic testimony. The church’s role has always been to receive it, recognize it, preserve it, and submit to it, not to author it or stand above it as its source.

The Spirit’s internal teaching ministry does not create a new word, nor does it wait for later institutional authentication. It confirms, illuminates, and applies the truth already given through the apostles. He's not a vending machine waiting for the right time or person to drop in a few coins and select what's true. The Spirit binds the community to what was heard from the beginning and makes that same truth living and effective in those who abide.

And what John is saying to us today is, if you can't trust in that Spirit's work, you are not in us. When John says, "They went out from us, but they were not of us," he is drawing a line. The refusal to remain in the apostolic testimony concerning the Son, and the preference for a different Christ who can be re-manifested through special insight, exposes a deeper AntiChrist reality.

But keep in mind, John's motive is not interrogation, but confirmation. Where that trust is present; where a person rests in the once-for-all Son who came in the flesh and in the Word the Spirit has sealed, there is belonging.

Amen.