Day 81: Three Tests For Building A Spiritual House.
Read: 1 John 2:3 - 11
One of the important lessons to be learned from the book of 1 John is
that you and I might come to know and believe and experience that the
spiritual houses that we are striving and working so hard trying to
build up instead of exerting greater effort toward tearing down, that
the reasons we are deliberately putting ourselves out there in our
neighborhoods and communities is for at least one right reason and that
someday it is absolutely positively going to become a God sized
difference somewhere somehow.
Notice a phrase that occurs three times in these verses. It is the phrase “whoever says.” It occurs in three times in verses 4, 6 and 9 and serves to introduce
us to a series of opportunities to test whereby we can know beyond a
shadow of doubt that the God sized thing we are preparing to do is being
done for what we believe are right reasons.
1) THE TEST OF
ATTITUDE (verses 3-5). This first test that John talks about is the test
of your attitude towards obeying the Word and will of God: A person who
is genuine will have a heart attitude that desires to be obedient to what they believe God is saying. He doesn’t mean that all of us will perfectly obedient all the time.
But he does mean that there is going to be at the very least the
strongest desire for obedience in our hearts.
2) THE TEST OF
ACTIONS (verse 6). You know that your spiritual house is being built
upon a strong foundation if there is a growing sense of obligation on
your part to live your life as Jesus lived, to respond to the things of
life as Jesus responded to them, to feel compelled to act upon the
opportunities, challenges of life the way Jesus did. Our walk and talk
ought to coincide. Our lives ought to be consistent with the way we
talk.
3) THE TEST OF AFFECTION (verses 7-11). Your love for
making a difference will be an indication of whether or not you are
trying to do God sized things for the right reasons. Is it growing
stronger? Is it gaining momentum? Is it reaching a point where you feel
like you cannot help yourself any longer or like John Wesley
experienced, is it growing strangely warmer and warmer with each passing
day? Are you smiling more each day at the awesome God sized
possibilities and blessings that you're sure will be the result.
Today, let your heart be strangely warmed by the same kind of burning,
transforming love that God keeps in abundance for all those whom He
created in His Image - the one's whose love continually strives to build
a bigger, better, stronger spiritual house into the Perfect Image of
God's Perfect Love on earth as it is in heaven! Pray Psalm 139.
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Read: 1 John 2:3 - 11
One of the important lessons to be learned from the book of 1 John is that you and I might come to know and believe and experience that the spiritual houses that we are striving and working so hard trying to build up instead of exerting greater effort toward tearing down, that the reasons we are deliberately putting ourselves out there in our neighborhoods and communities is for at least one right reason and that someday it is absolutely positively going to become a God sized difference somewhere somehow.
Notice a phrase that occurs three times in these verses. It is the phrase “whoever says.” It occurs in three times in verses 4, 6 and 9 and serves to introduce us to a series of opportunities to test whereby we can know beyond a shadow of doubt that the God sized thing we are preparing to do is being done for what we believe are right reasons.
1) THE TEST OF ATTITUDE (verses 3-5). This first test that John talks about is the test of your attitude towards obeying the Word and will of God: A person who is genuine will have a heart attitude that desires to be obedient to what they believe God is saying. He doesn’t mean that all of us will perfectly obedient all the time. But he does mean that there is going to be at the very least the strongest desire for obedience in our hearts.
2) THE TEST OF ACTIONS (verse 6). You know that your spiritual house is being built upon a strong foundation if there is a growing sense of obligation on your part to live your life as Jesus lived, to respond to the things of life as Jesus responded to them, to feel compelled to act upon the opportunities, challenges of life the way Jesus did. Our walk and talk ought to coincide. Our lives ought to be consistent with the way we talk.
3) THE TEST OF AFFECTION (verses 7-11). Your love for making a difference will be an indication of whether or not you are trying to do God sized things for the right reasons. Is it growing stronger? Is it gaining momentum? Is it reaching a point where you feel like you cannot help yourself any longer or like John Wesley experienced, is it growing strangely warmer and warmer with each passing day? Are you smiling more each day at the awesome God sized possibilities and blessings that you're sure will be the result.
Today, let your heart be strangely warmed by the same kind of burning, transforming love that God keeps in abundance for all those whom He created in His Image - the one's whose love continually strives to build a bigger, better, stronger spiritual house into the Perfect Image of God's Perfect Love on earth as it is in heaven! Pray Psalm 139.
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