Mapperley Minister's Monday Mail, 14th October 2013

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Loving God | Loving Each Other | Loving our Community

Greetings!


Yesterday we began our new series in 1 John with looking at two of the big questions the apostle John tackles in his letter.


The first one was the question of how we can know God. I've put roughly what I said yesterday here because hopefully most of the regular readers of my Monday mail are happy with the fact that we know God in Jesus. Incidentally, if you're worried about how we get from knowing God through Jesus to knowing him in the Bible, there are some great resources on Mark Meynell's blog.


The main topic I spoke about yesterday though was John's big theme – how can we be sure that we are following the real Jesus? John gives us three tests, which we're going to spend more time looking at over the next few weeks. They're really helpful for giving us a quick spiritual check-up.


Testing our mind – do we know and trust that Jesus is God himself, come as a real man? And because Jesus is truly God, we can see whether other things are from God by how much they point to Jesus. If someone denies that Jesus is God (JWs) or points beyond him to something else, like keeping rules or some other prophet or angel then it isn't from God.


Testing our heart – do we love God and his people the church, and are we growing in love for them? Perhaps the best test of that is our attitude to Christians who are most different from us and who we wouldn't naturally get on with. Do we love them more than we did 5 years ago? If so, be encouraged, it looks like you're on the right track. Do Christian websites that we look at help us love other Christians more or not?


Testing our will – are we seeking to live more and more in accordance with the way God wants us to live? The test isn't about perfection; it's about doing better now than we were a few years ago. And when we do mess up, are we seeking to come back to him and ask for his forgiveness?


If the answer to those three tests is "yes", then we should be encouraged because we're on the right track at the moment. If the answer is "no", then there's something wrong and we could do with taking the time to get it looked at so that it doesn't become more serious.


God bless!


John

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