2 My dear friend, I know that you are doing well spiritually. So I pray that everything else is going well with you and that you are enjoying good health. 3 Some believers came and told me about the truth [b] in your life. They told me that you continue to follow the way of truth. This made me very happy. 4 It always gives me the greatest joy when I hear that my children are following the way of truth.
5 My dear friend, it is good that you continue to help the believers. They are people you don’t even know. 6 They told the church about the love you have. Please help them to continue their trip. Help them in a way that will please God. 7 They went on their trip to serve Christ. They did not accept any help from people who are not believers. 8 So we should help them. When we help them, we share with their work for the truth.
When we can help, we need to do it...
9 I wrote a letter to the church, but Diotrephes will not listen to what we say. He always wants to be the leader. 10 When I come, I will talk with him about what he is doing. He lies and says evil things about us, but that is not all. He refuses to welcome and help the believers who travel there. And he will not let others help them. If they do, he stops them from meeting with the church anymore.
11 My dear friend, don’t follow what is bad; follow what is good. Whoever does what is good is from God. But whoever does evil has never known God.
12 Everyone says good things about Demetrius, and the truth agrees with what they say. Also, we say good about him. And you know that what we say is true.
13 I have many things I want to tell you. But I don’t want to use pen and ink. 14 I hope to visit you soon. Then we can be together and talk. 15 Peace to you. The friends here with me send their love. Please give our love to each one of the friends there.
5 The people who believe that Jesus is the Messiah are God’s children. Anyone who loves the Father also loves the Father’s children. 2 How do we know that we love God’s children? We know because we love God and we obey his commands. 3 Loving God means obeying his commands. And God’s commands are not too hard for us, 4 because everyone who is a child of God has the power to win against the world. 5 It is our faith that has won the victory against the world. So who wins against the world? Only those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God.
We as a member of God's house, the others believers will be our brother and sister. God's decide who is the member of the house, not us. We need to accept all of them and love them. How you treat your brother and sister?
Jesus never said that obedience is an easy stuff. But serve Christ need self-consciousness and the pay of the energy to love him and not hard to pick the heavy burden. When we feel that is hard for us to carry the burden, we can always come to Christ and get help from Him....
God Told Us About His Son
6 Jesus Christ is the one who came. He came with water and with blood. [a] He did not come by water only. No, Jesus came by both water and blood. And the Spirit tells us that this is true. The Spirit is the truth. 7 So there are three witnesses that tell us about Jesus: 8 the Spirit, the water, and the blood. These three witnesses agree.
9 We believe people when they say something is true. But what God says is more important. And this is what God told us: He told us the truth about his own Son. 10 Whoever believes in the Son of God has the truth that God told us. But people who do not believe God make God a liar, because they do not believe what God told us about his Son. 11 This is what God told us: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 Whoever has the Son has life, but whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.
We Have Eternal Life Now
13 I write this letter to you who believe in the Son of God. I write so that you will know that you have eternal life now. 14 We can come to God with no doubts. This means that when we ask God for things (and those things agree with what God wants for us), God cares about what we say. 15 He listens to us every time we ask him. So we know that he gives us whatever we ask from him.
This verse is about God's will and not our will. When we have a conversation with God, is not asking of what we want, is about what he want and what his planning in us. When we ask what he want, he will listen to our prayer and when he is listening, he will give us the right answer. Now we can start praying by faith.
16 Suppose you see your fellow believer sinning (sin that does not lead to eternal death). You should pray for them. Then God will give them life. I am talking about people whose sin does not lead to eternal death. There is sin that leads to death. I don’t mean that you should pray about that kind of sin. 17 Doing wrong is always sin. But there is sin that does not lead to eternal death.
18 We know that those who have been made God’s children do not continue to sin. The Son of God keeps them safe. [b] The Evil One cannot hurt them. 19 We know that we belong to God, but the Evil One controls the whole world. 20 And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding. So now we can know the one who is true, and we live in that true God. We are in his Son, Jesus Christ. He is the true God, and he is eternal life. 21 So, dear children, keep yourselves away from false gods.
4 My dear friends, many false prophets are in the world now. So don’t believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they are from God. 2 This is how you can recognize God’s Spirit. One spirit says, “I believe that Jesus is the Messiah who came to earth and became a man.” That Spirit is from God. 3 Another spirit refuses to say this about Jesus. That spirit is not from God. This is the spirit of the enemy of Christ. You have heard that the enemy of Christ is coming, and now he is already in the world.
4 My dear children, you belong to God, so you have already defeated these false prophets. That’s because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. 5 And they belong to the world, so what they say is from the world too. And the world listens to what they say. 6 But we are from God. So the people who know God listen to us. But the people who are not from God don’t listen to us. This is how we know the Spirit that is true and the spirit that is false.
Yes we are from God, So the people who know God listen to us. John advise the believer that taught the truth don't ever hope will get the favor from all the masses. Most of the people will not love the other to rebuke their iniquity and also not willing to change the way of living, that's why the false prophet is welcome by all.
Love Comes From God
7 Dear friends, we should love each other, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has become God’s child. And so everyone who loves knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love to us: He sent his only Son into the world to give us life through him. 10 True love is God’s love for us, not our love for God. He sent his Son as the way to take away our sins.
Everyone mostly will think that Love is a Feeling, but in fact LOVE IS A CHOICE, AN ACTION. Our God is the source of LOVE. He loves us and sacrifice his son for us. Jesus is the modal of LOVE, he taught us LOVE and he did everything in the world and his death is the greatest LOVE. Holy spirit gave us the power of LOVE, he lives in our hearts, so that we are more like Christ. That's your choice and how to show your action to the love of God.
John said "God is LOVE" not "LOVE is God". In this world, we had no idea bout true love, we are selfish and distorted the true meaning of love. We thought that love is something make people happy so they are willing to sacrifice the moral principles and deprived of the rights of other people to gain the "love". that's not true LOVE, that's selfish. True love is like God that holy completely fair. we really know God, will be like God so loved the world that to love the others.
Love can be explained in many things.
1. Why do God create this world? - because He fill with LOVE, and he create human to LOVE.
2. Why God care about people? - because he love the people and he the cares about the sinner.
3. Why we got the freedom to choose? - because he wants us to love active response to him.
4. Why Jesus going to die? - because he loves us, he would like to solved the problem of driven sin.
5. Why we could have eternal life? - because his love is unlimited forever.
11 That is how much God loved us, dear friends! So we also must love each other. 12 No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us. If we love each other, God’s love has reached its goal—it is made perfect in us.
Some people more actively in making friends, they have a lots of friends. But some they more shy and conservatism, they seldom talk to the stranger and they will feel uneasy when in public, they could have lesser friends. People who shy don't have to wait as the personality change after they start to love others. John does not mention how many people we should love, he told us to love who around us. Our responsibilities is to love those God has given to us to love no matter is 2 or 200 peoples. No matter how shy are we, we should not afraid of loving. God will give us strength to do whatever he want us to do.
13 We know that we live in God and God lives in us. We know this because he gave us his Spirit. 14 We have seen that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world, and this is what we tell people now. 15 Anyone who says, “I believe that Jesus is the Son of God,” is a person who lives in God, and God lives in that person. 16 So we know the love that God has for us, and we trust that love.
When we received Christ as our savior, Holy spirit lives in us and he give us strength to love the others. By the power of the holy spirit, we could have faith in connecting with people.
God is love. Everyone who lives in love lives in God, and God lives in them. 17 If God’s love is made perfect in us, we can be without fear on the day when God judges the world. We will be without fear, because in this world we are like Jesus. [a] 18 Where God’s love is, there is no fear, because God’s perfect love takes away fear. It is his punishment that makes a person fear. So his love is not made perfect in the one who has fear.
Stay focus on the eternity love from God, let him used us to love the others, our fear can eliminate and we can also face the future with full of confidence.
19 We love because God first loved us. 20 If we say we love God but hate any of our brothers or sisters in his family, we are liars. If we don’t love someone we have seen, how can we love God? We have never even seen him. 21 God gave us this command: If we love God, we must also love each other as brothers and sisters.
we talk about love God, but we just attending the sunday service and nothing else. But the real love is to see how we treat the people around us and the members of family and brother sister in Christ.
Yesterday really a busy night... my cousin meet an accident. we need to go report police and in out the police station few times. Thanks God, everything settle on time, but really Hope God will continue to lead my cousin and settle his car. I don't know how to help him up beside accompany him.
Another hand my working place unit have an relationship issue. They could have an argument between my colleague and my boss. They angry my boss so much. I know probably my boss had done or speak something hurting their feelings. I know I should not judge, I should not gossip. what I can is just keep them in my prayer. When I talk with my colleague, She told me the story about what's happening in between them. Honestly I found there is no need to be so complicated and hurting, because the Emo thing happen, they can't control their anger and hurting words makes the situation worse. Quite upset when I heard that. I told myself from now onwards, I could spend more time praying for them. I know the end of the people is the beginning of God. I know God will fix it if I willing to use by him, I wanna share God's love to them. Fill the house with God's love. Nothing is greater than God's love. I trust God will have his time to make it happen. God, may your will be done on earth as is in the heaven. Amen.
3 The Father has loved us so much! This shows how much he loved us: We are called children of God. And we really are his children. But the people in the world don’t understand that we are God’s children, because they have not known him. 2 Dear friends, now we are children of God. We have not yet been shown what we will be in the future. But we know that when Christ comes again, we will be like him. We will see him just as he is. 3 He is pure, and everyone who has this hope in him keeps themselves pure like Christ.
we are slowly become more like Christ when we
1. better then than a sin.
2. love one and other.
3. be confidence when facing God.
4 Anyone who sins breaks God’s law. Yes, sinning is the same as living against God’s law. 5 You know that Christ came to take away people’s sins. There is no sin in Christ. 6 So whoever lives in Christ does not continue to sin. If they continue to sin, they have never really understood Christ and have never known him.
7 Dear children, don’t let anyone lead you into the wrong way. Christ always did what was right. So to be good like Christ, you must do what is right. 8 The devil has been sinning since the beginning. Anyone who continues to sin belongs to the devil. The Son of God came for this: to destroy the devil’s work.
How to overcome the sin around us?
1. let's holy spirit and the words of God help us.
2. Get away from the temptation.
3. Get help from other brother and sister, let them pray for you and open your heart and accept their advice.
9 Those who are God’s children do not continue to sin, because the new life God gave them [a] stays in them. They cannot keep sinning, because they have become children of God. 10 So we can see who God’s children are and who the devil’s children are. These are the ones who are not God’s children: those who don’t do what is right and those who do not love their brothers and sisters in God’s family.
Holy spirit with us and give us Jesus's new life and we are reborn in Christ and God forgiven us and accept us.
We Must Love One Another
11 This is the teaching you have heard from the beginning: We must love each other. 12 Don’t be like Cain. He belonged to the Evil One. Cain killed his brother. But why did he kill him? Because what Cain did was evil, and what his brother did was good.
13 Brothers and sisters, don’t be surprised when the people of this world hate you. 14 We know that we have left death and have come into life. We know this because we love each other as brothers and sisters. Anyone who does not love is still in death. 15 Anyone who hates a fellow believer is a murderer. [b] And you know that no murderer has eternal life.
16 This is how we know what real love is: Jesus gave his life for us. So we should give our lives for each other as brothers and sisters. 17 Suppose a believer who is rich enough to have all the necessities of life sees a fellow believer who is poor and does not have even basic needs. What if the rich believer does not help the poor one? Then it is clear that God’s love is not in that person’s heart. 18 My children, our love should not be only words and talk. No, our love must be real. We must show our love by the things we do.
That’s how we know we belong to the way of truth. And when our hearts make us feel guilty, we can still have peace before God, because God is greater than our hearts. He knows everything.
I shall lay down my life to others as Jesus gave his life for me. We shall love the others and don't ever thought to get a reward. How could I show Jesus's love to the other? Am I really love the others? In money and time, whether I could generously pay???
21 My dear friends, if we don’t feel that we are doing wrong, we can be without fear when we come to God. 22 And God gives us what we ask for. We receive it because we obey God’s commands and do what pleases him. 23 This is what God commands: that we believe in his Son Jesus Christ, and that we love each other as he commanded. 24 All who obey God’s commands live in God. And God lives in them. How do we know that God lives in us? We know because of the Spirit he gave us.
Believer should live in Christ and he will live in us too. In the mutual relationship, believers shall follow three important commands:
1. Believe in Christ
2. Love your brother and sister
3. Live a moral life
Today Thanks God I had spend sometimes back to prayer's live. I pray and tears in God's love. I know he is talking with me. I know what could I do to please him. I know how to be a favor of God. I want to be more close to him and his spirit in me touch me and guide me all along.
I know sometimes I make him disappointed, but he do forgive me and I know he is the one I'm pleasing and I had make up my mind to follow him as long as I'm still breathing. I should lay down my life, my everything in his hand and do what He want me to do. Love is kind, not selfish. I had admit what I done previously could make him sad. and he has forgiven me as well. I'm brand new and I will walk with him and till forever.
God please guide me and let's my life shine for you and what I do will glorified your name. I could have some dream, that's all about your kingdom's work. I know that I gonna have kinda faith to make that happen. I trust in you and I will keep that all in my prayer until one day It's really happen.
I know that you created me for a purpose and I know you choose me and mold me from nobody to somebody. I should use all that I have and I could to serve you the only my master. In Jesus Christ name. Amen.
