1 John 5:12-20

For Reading and Meditation:     1 John 4:17-21;5:1-12

Although the love of God is clearly laid out in the Old Testament, why did humankind have to wait so long to have the message spelled out in such clear terms as John uses: God is love? People could not see this sufficiently clearly until they had looked into the face of Jesus. In the life of Jesus is the...

For Reading and Meditation:     John 5:31-47

Jesus claimed to be greater than the Scriptures. Everyone else has to put themselves under the authority of the Scriptures. In one sense, of course, Christ subjected Himself to the Scriptures, but in another sense He was superior to them. He did not emerge from the Bible; the Bible emerged from Him. The Amplified Bible...

The fact that Christ's Kingdom is not of this world is enough to keep me out of the world's politics. If I participate in politics, then I am casting a vote of confidence in the system's ability to solve the world's problems. But frankly I have no such confidence because I know that "the whole world lies in the power of the evil one" (1 John 5:19).

Politics has proved singularly ineffective in solving the problems of society. Political...

"Through faith we understand…" These words embody one of the most basic principles of spiritual life. We believe God's Word first, then we understand. The world says, "Seeing is believing;" God says, "Believing is seeing." The Lord Jesus said to Martha, "Said I not unto thee, that if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see…"(John 11:40). Later He said to Thomas, "…blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed" (

Some of us will be eternally thankful to God for this verse because it taught us that assurance of salvation comes first and foremost through the Word of God and not through feelings. The Bible was written, among other reasons, so that those who believe on the Name of the Son of God can know that they have eternal life.

We can be thankful that assurance does not come through feelings, because they fluctuate with every passing day. "God does not ask the soul to say, 'Thank God I feel so...

God had given the land of Canaan to the people of Israel. It was theirs by divine promise. But they still had to make it their own. They had to occupy it. The rule of possession was, "Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you."

God has given us many great and precious promises. The Bible is full of them. But we must appropriate them by faith. Only then are they really ours.

Take, for instance, the promises concerning salvation. The Lord...

Yesterday we considered a passage that often proves distressing to sincere Christians. Today we will look at three verses in John's first epistle that also disturb believers who are all too aware of their sinfulness. There is the verse already quoted at the top of the page. Then there is 1 John 3:9 : "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." And

By life the Scripture means, true life, life in union to God, in the image of God; life with bliss and purity. An eternity under conditions like those that belong to the life of sinful man, were utterly undesirable. True life includes everything desirable, and the entire universe of God is just one of its perquisites. They that believe in Christ have Christ. They that have Christ have life. They that have life, have it eternally. They that have eternal life may know that they have it, and...

Hast thou considered well, O John the son of Zebedee, the beloved disciple, what is implied in these words of thine? These words fly in the face of all human philosophies, and give a picture of the world such as all the world is sure to abhor. They will laugh thee to scorn, with thy description of mankind as being without life save as they find it in Christ. For thy words, if they mean anything, declare that all the world have become obnoxious to the everlasting wrath of God, and are going...