“Our great need, then, is simply Jesus Christ. He is what we need. He has what we need. He knows what we need to know. He has the ability to do in us what we cannot do – working in us that which is well-pleasing in God’s sight.” A. W. Tozer.
Knowing the truth is a rich and multi-layered project for us human beings. God has made us wonderfully, intricately, so that we can engage in a relationship with him that is intimate, richly experiential on all levels of our being. All of this starts, John says, with the work that God has done in and through Jesus Christ. That is a work that God has done outside of and apart from us. But this thing that God has done doesn’t, can’t remain simply an objective fact that is “out there.” It is a truth that invades our being to the core. It is a truth that we come to know not merely by rational thought and agreement. Rather, it is a truth that we come to know by experience. It is a truth that is embodied in love — love that we receive and love that we live out. We come to know God not merely the way we come to know that the sun is 93 million miles from the earth. We come to know it the way we come to know how ride a bicycle or how to swim.
Read Romans 12:9-21 & 1 John 4:15-21.
Then listen to: “Words from the Beloved Apostle: Loving Jesus.”
© 2013 Gary A. Chorpenning; all rights reserved.
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- Sermon #39 – Words from the Beloved Apostle: Living through Jesus – 1 John 4:1-6 (gachorpenning.wordpress.com)
- Sermon #40 – Words from the Beloved Apostle: Loving Like Jesus Again – 1 John 4:7-14 (gachorpenning.wordpress.com)
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