Love One Another – Part II

Today’s Scripture: 1 John 3:11-24

Key Verse: 1 John 3:11

This is the message you have heard from the beginning: We should love one another.

Starting at 1 John 3:19, we read an interesting fact about obeying God’s command to love one another: When we disregard what we might “feel” about another believer and “act” to give them what they need, we will stand before God with confidence.

When we are obedient to God, we have confidence in other areas as well. For example, we have confidence in our prayers and in our destiny for eternity. The opposite is also true: When we are disobedient, we lose that confidence and human fear can replaces it.

But John wants us to realize that we need not lose our confidence in God because He is greater than our “feelings”: “Even if we feel guilty, God is greater than our feelings, and He knows everything.” (1 John 3:20).

Here is what John is saying: When we are obedient to a command of God, it builds our confidence. But that confidence is mostly based on ourselves. However, God always gives grace to us, and grace is still there even when we are disobedient!

When you feel that you have “blown it” with God, please remember that He still loves you deeply and keeps working in your life to make you stronger and more mature in Him. Obedience always makes us feel better and have more confidence.

However, we need to remind ourselves God doesn’t love us more during our victories and He doesn’t love us less during our failures.

Look at 1 John 3:21: “Dear friends, if we don’t feel guilty, we can come to God with bold confidence”.

I hope you can see that being obedient to what we believe God wants us to do is always good for us. We do not lose our salvation every time we are disobedient to Him, but we do lose our confidence, which can negatively affect our prayers.

Do you have something going on in your life today that you feel desperate for God to step in and work a miracle? If so, you need to have boldness in your prayers. The Apostle John is telling us that disobedience takes away our boldness!

Beyond the fact that we rarely feel worthy of God’s favor based on our own actions, is there any specific area of disobedience that comes to mind? If so, confess that to God and decide to be a victor over that area, in Jesus’s Name.

Remember that being obedient to God brings great rewards to your life, especially in your prayer life. However, do not allow a failure in obedience to make you think you are less loved by God.

Father, I know you are greater than my feelings, I will continue to trust your love and grace for me. In Jesus’s Name I pray, amen.