1 John 3:21-24 “Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. All who keep his commandments abide in him, and he in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit which he has given us.” This episode is about having confidence before God and reminding us to have love. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Have Confidence Before God
1 John 3:21-24 “Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. All who keep his commandments abide in him, and he in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit which he has given us.”
The beginning part of this verse confused me at first. I did not understand what it meant when it said, “If our hearts do not condemn us.” When I looked through a couple of different websites it looks like what the writer is trying to say is, if we are following the Lord’s commands. If we know that we are doing what we are supposed to be doing. Many times we wonder if we will have salvation. Our hearts are condemning us, meaning our hearts don’t believe that we will gain salvation. I think it is important to remember that we will not earn salvation on our own. We will never be “good enough” to be saved by ourselves. We earn salvation because Jesus died on a cross for us. Does that mean, that we get to do whatever we want now? No, not at all, the Lord wants us to follow His commands and walk in His footsteps. It even says it in this verse, “because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.”
This is another verse that says that we will “receive from him whatever we ask.” This is similar to Matthew 7:7, “ Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” This verse is giving us instruction on how our prayers can be answered. The verse is telling us to have confidence before God that He will keep His promise to answer our prayers because we keep his commandments and do what pleases Him. Are we doing this? Are we keeping His commandments? One of the articles I read said this is not referring to the commandments given to Moses, but the commandments given during the sermon on the mount. The Sermon on the Mount can be found in Matthew 5-7. The 10 Commandments can be found in Exodus 20:2-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21. I am not sure if it’s true that we need to focus more on the Sermon on the Mount more than the 10 Commandments, however, Matthew 5:2-11 lists the beatitudes and it couldn’t hurt to read those and become familiar with them.
The next line in this verse says, “And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another just as he has commanded us.” Here we are back to love again. I think if we were all truly living the two greatest commandments as the Lord instructed us to, all the others would be easy. These can be found in Matthew 22:36-40, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” We talked about yesterday how God said above all clothe yourselves in love. Love is something that keeps coming up. I think if we could understand how important love is, we would understand God more. I believe that God is love. We can not hope to bring people to the Lord through Jesus if we don’t approach them with love. If we start from love and go from there, we would get so much further.
Jesus didn’t approach people and try to change them with His words. He didn’t sit with the tax collectors and tell them that they can’t keep doing their job. He didn’t sit there and judge them and tell them they would be going to hell if they continued down their current path. He just loved them right where they were at, just as they were. It wasn’t just His words that changed people, it was His love. We need more of this in the world. We need less judgement and more love. I believe that Jesus did tell people how they could live according to the Lord. I am not saying that He just sat by and watched those He knew continue to make the same sins over and over again. I do believe He corrected people, but that isn’t where He started. He started out just loving them where they were at. This is something that I wish everyone could realize. People will listen to you if they know you are coming from a place of love. If someone knows that you love them and really care about them, they will listen to what you have to say. They will be more likely to trust that what you are saying is coming from a place of concern and not judgement. I have seen this time and time again with our children. Our kids response to anything we are saying is based on how we say it and how they are feeling when we say it. If they are feeling loved at that moment they are more likely to hear what we are saying and less likely to be defensive. Now, if only I could remember that every time I talked to my kids.
The same is true with those that you wish to talk to about Jesus. If we start off talking to someone we don’t know telling them about all the things they should and should not do, they will shut down and not listen. However, if you start off by talking with them about Jesus’ love, they will be more likely to listen. If we love others right where they are at, we will be more likely to bring them to Jesus. The same goes for our spouses or our kids. If we are always telling them what they are doing wrong, they are going to stop listening to us. I understand we may feel it is our place to correct them and to bring them up in the correct way. I am not disputing this, but are you coming from a place of love first? Many times we are not parenting from a place of love, we are parenting from a place of fear. We are scared that our kids won’t do the right thing, or that they may get hurt, or that they will stop believing in God, or that they won’t ever find God. Parenting from fear, or making any decisions from a place of fear will not help us achieve what we want to achieve. Colossians 3:14 “Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” Love is the key, love is the answer.
I love how this verse ends. “All who keep his commandments abide in him, and he in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit which he has given us.” How great is it then when we keep His commandments He abides in us and we abide in Him? He abides in us by the Spirit which He has given to us. I don’t know about you, but I could sure use the Lord abiding in me. This statement also shows us how devastating sin can be. The verse says all who keep his commandments abide in Him and He in them. But, what about when we sin? What does sin do to that relationship? Sin breaks that relationship. When we choose to sin we are choosing to break our relationship with the Lord and the only way to repair it is to repent. To let the Lord know we are sorry and to commit to do our best to not sin again. I am so grateful that our Heavenly Father wants to abide in us and that He allows us to abide in Him. He not only allows it, but He loves it when we abide in Him.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, help us to abide in you. Help us to keep your commandments and to do what pleases you. Help us to have confidence in you and to not let our hearts condemn us. Lord, this world seems to be really struggling with the commandment to love one another. Please help us to have the strength to do this. Give us a holy boldness that is required to love some people. Help us to see that it is not our place to judge and condemn, it is our place to love people, right where they’re at. It is our job to let Jesus’ love for them shine through us. Help us remember this Lord and give us the grace to make it happen. We love you Lord, you are so amazing. We are so grateful that we get to abide in You and that You abide in us. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to spending time with you again tomorrow. Have a blessed day!