Read with Me
1 John 5:1-5 (HCSB)
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Messiah has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father also loves the one born of Him. This is how we know that we love God’s children when we love God and obey His commands. For this is what love for God is: to keep His commands. Now His commands are not a burden, because whatever has been born of God conquers the world. This is the victory that has conquered the world: our faith. And who is the one who conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
Listen with Me
John’s argument in this short paragraph runs in a circle, but it is logically coherent. Salvation and overcoming the world are one piece, and both rest on believing that Jesus is the Messiah, the eternal Son of God.
The middle step, the essential step between believing in Jesus and the ability to overcome the world, is obedience to God’s commands. In fact, as John clearly points out, there can be no love for God in the human heart if that heart is rebelling against His commands and is being disobedient. And without obedient love for God, there can be no love for one’s brothers and sisters in Christ.
In a sense, John shows a flow in the Christian life that looks like this: A person believes that Jesus is the Messiah, the eternal Son of God made flesh. Through that belief, that person is born again, and becomes a legitimate child of God. That new relationship with God transforms the heart and give that person the power and the will to obey God’s commands. Through that obedience, a person is able to overcome the world and live victoriously. At the same time, the transformation of the heart that comes through relationship with God results in genuine, self-sacrificing agape love toward one’s brothers and sisters in Christ.
None of these steps can be left out for salvation and all its various manifestations to be real. No one can be born again without acknowledging Jesus as the Messiah and God’s eternal Son. No one can be in relationship with God without obeying all His commands. And no one can effectively love their brothers and sisters in Christ without being in relationship with God.
Pray with Me
Father, even though at first glance John’s argument seems repetitive and circular, it makes a lot of sense. He is simply showing how belief in Jesus, salvation, obedience, and love for You and for others is all one piece, with each part interlocked with every other part. For salvation to be real, each part must be present and fully operational, or everything falls apart. Help me, Lord, to live out this amazing truth today in every dimension of my life. Amen.