Imitate What is Good

3 John   There are a lot of things working on us to keep us from being faithful, or if nothing else, to steal our joy when we are.  At night in my leisure, I might have a thought of reading a certain book.  As soon as I have the thought, I think of other [...]

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Watch Out

2 John   From the one who urges us over and over to ‘love one another’, John does not bat an eye at warning us of the ‘many deceivers’ that ‘have gone out into the world’.  In one breath he urges us to ‘love’ some while in the next he says, ‘watch out’ for others. [...]

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Dimmers

1 John 5   According to my wife, you can’t have too many dimmers both in and outside a home.  Whether for your own enjoyment, entertaining, or trying to display a home for sale, the right lighting makes a big difference.  There was a time, early in the life of electricity, when people went from [...]

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Made Perfect In Love

1 John 4:7-21   “Dear friends, let us love one another.”   “Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”   “There is no fear in love.  But perfect love drives out fear, because has to do with punishment.  The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” [...]

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Test the Spirits

1 John 4:1-6   As many times as I have read this passage over the years, I never had the thought in regard to it that I had recently.  I had always thought of it strictly in the context of presenters of the Gospel (preachers, teachers, writers, singers).  But a few days ago I saw [...]

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Better Now In the Turns

1 John 3:11-24   In the sport of Nascar, small adjustments can create big changes in a car’s ability to handle turns; and in Nascar, there are a lot of turns.  By tweaking the air pressure of just one tire by as little as ½ pound, it can be worth a whole pound of cure.  [...]

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Believers, Deceivers and All In Between

1 John 3   1 John 3:6 “No one who lives in him keeps on sinning.  No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him”.  1 John 3:9 “No one who is born of God will continue to sin”.   Those are pretty strong words.  I have struggled over their meanings [...]

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The Revealing Test of Litmus

1 John 2:7-29   John has just made this statement in 2:6, “This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did”.  In the next few verses he gives us two examples of how He walked.  As I stated in ‘A New Set of Cravings’, [...]

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New Set of Cravings

1 John 1:5 – 2:6   For years I struggled with cravings that were contrary to the new nature I was supposed to have.  Like Paul, I had the desire to do what was good, but I could not carry it out – at least on a consistent basis.  As a result, when I would [...]

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Determined to Know the Truth

1 John 1:3   In the movie, Secondhand Lions, a teenage boy named Walter is dropped off against his will on the farm of two old has-been uncles, while his single mom ventures off to who knows where.  Supposedly the uncles have a fortune and Walters’s mom hopes they will grow to like him and [...]

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