1 John 2:25 – Walking in His Promises

“And this is the promise that He has promised us—eternal life.”

1 John 2:25 (NKJV)

When I read this it gives me confidence that I am on the right path in life.  Something inside me wants to live forever.  The same reason most of us would fight to the death to preserve one’s life.  What did John mean when he wrote this? 

To understand better here’s a quick overview.  At this point John was an older man and perhaps the only surviving apostle at this time.  The letter was untitled and sent as a pastoral letter to no particular church.  The letter was most likely sent to Gentile (person who is not Jewish) congregations.  John wrote these letters for encouragement to mature believers and to the young in faith.  The main thing John was writing about in this chapter was about loving each other.  This is not a new commandment but I feel a hard one to live out in our daily lives.  It’s easy to love our brothers and sisters when they are good people.  The part I always have a hard time with is when they are not good people or they do us wrong.  My first instinct is retaliation but this is not what Jesus taught us.  In Matthew 18:21-22 Peter asks, “How often should I forgive someone who keeps sinning against me?”  Jesus then tells him “seventy times seven.”  Yep I did the math that’s 490 times in other words I guess forever.  There were points in my life where I believed in no forgiveness, an eye for an eye mentality.  As my walk with Christ got more serious I had to abandon this mentality.  I reached a point in my life where I just had to let things go.  It was hurting me more than it was hurting them, because they didn’t care what they did anyways (as far as I could tell).  I also couldn’t take on the world because my list of enemies was getting long.  Another realization I had was I wanted God to forgive me but I didn’t want to forgive others.

John was also warning us not to love this world.  At first I was like great “I don’t”.  Then as I started to write this and think well my actions don’t always reflect this.  I like things of this world and some of them are not good for me.  I could probably write a long list but that’s a whole other blog post.  John then ends the chapter reminding us of antichrists.  I never thought of it from this angle before but John says an antichrist is “anyone who denies the Father and the Son is an antichrist.” John then tells us that there will be many antichrists that will try to lead us astray.  Remember God is light and there is no darkness in him.   That’s when I think about the eternal life God has promised us and I am so grateful.  I believe it is something every human being longs for.  Matthew 7:14 tell us but the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, but only a few will ever find it.  Like John tells us in this book we should be living in the light and letting our actions show the world we are Christians (I know easier said than done).

For those of us who have grown stale or are longing for a deeper relationship with God, I challenge you to seek him.  God will make his presence known.  Things will happen in your life that you will not be able to explain other than there is a one true God.  I have seen many miracles in my life that man has tried to explain to me.  There is no other explanation other than God exists.  The more I study, the deeper I am in God’s word, the more is revealed to me. The way I do this is by changing many of my normal habits.  Instead of always watching TV every day/night maybe I read the Bible.  When I do watch TV I try to include more Christian programming. Pureflix.com and Vidangel.com is a good place to start.  I also started to get away from secular music and to listen to more Christian music.  I find Christian music has a better message and has me searching the Bible to see if something they said was true.  Just in case you can’t tell I’m not a Christian scholar I’m learning every day just like everyone else. I also find myself praying all throughout the day not just at night.  If a situation has come about I will pray for it immediately rather than waiting till the end of day.  These are just a few examples of things I do to draw closer to God.   Bottom line getting into the Bible as much as you can will always be a good thing!  If you love what we’re doing here in the Promise Chocolates blog I encourage you to share our post.

May grace and blessings be in your path,

Mundo