DOES YOUR LIFE SHOW THAT YOU REALLY LOVE JESUS?

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. But you know that He appeared so that He might take away our sins. And in Him is no sin. No one who lives in Him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen Him or known Him.

1 John 3:4-6

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

When a person has chosen to believe in Jesus, they gain a new identity and when asked, can proclaim themselves as a Christian.

But here’s the thing. Telling someone you are a Christian and then backing it up with the way you act are two different things, a truth supported by today’s scripture passage as we continue to study from the third chapter of 1 John. Let’s look again at those words here:

Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. But you know that He appeared so that He might take away our sins. And in Him is no sin. No one who lives in Him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen Him or known Him. Vv.4-6

Here we’re reminded that sin is always in direct opposition to what God wants from those He created in His own image. Go back to Eden’s Garden and when sin infected a perfectly created man and woman, Adam and Eve, and you’ll find that their disobedience was born out of violating a law God had established. For you’ll remember that God gave the first couple permission to eat from any tree in the garden except for the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. There were more than enough places for Adam and Eve to eat in compliance with God’s order and yet they willingly chose to eat the forbidden fruit.

Indeed, sin from that point forward became lawlessness and led to God having to provide a remedy for the sin problem, His Son Jesus.

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

John, the author of this letter, captured the words of another John, who we know as John the Baptist, in the first chapter of his Gospel as Jesus emerged on the scene to begin His adult ministry. The Baptizer proclaimed:

“Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” v.29

And so as we read in our passage for today, Jesus appeared on earth, God coming down to walk among His people, so to take away our sins, a sinless man who sacrificed Himself in what was the ultimate act of atonement and cleansing.

Jesus willingly chose to die in the place every single person (read every single sinner) deserved to, purchasing our sin pardon when we place our belief and trust in Him as Savior.

Friends, this isn’t something we’re to take lightly as Christian believers. For from the moment we choose to believe in Jesus, we need to do so with our eyes fixed on the cross and then continue to keep our eyes fixed there. We can’t afford to lose sight of what He surrendered for us and the terrible anguish that went along with, not just being crucified but also bearing the sin of all humanity, an act that led to Him being separated from His Heavenly Father at the time when He needed Him most.

When we grasp this as believers, fully keeping in mind all that Jesus did to save us from our sins, then we should never desire to sin again and indeed, if we remain in Him, we can and will stop sinning. The key is remaining detached from the world and the flesh and anchored in Him 24/7.

So now, armed with this build up, we look at the question that forms the title for this message:

Does your life show that you really know Jesus?

The answer to this comes through the last statement in our scripture passage for today.

No one who continues to sin has either seen Him or known Him.

If any Christian continues to give into temptation, prioritizing their own desires, or worst yet the desires of Satan, ahead of living as Jesus did then the scriptures are clear here. Those people could have never seen or known their Savior for no one who truly was in Him would ever find pleasure in the very sins that He bore when He died on Calvary’s cross.

And so, a life that shows a Christian really loves Jesus will be a life that rejects even the notion of sin let alone actually carrying it out.  No one who has said they have placed their belief in Him should ever let their life reflect otherwise by trading in righteousness for wickedness, the Savior for Satan.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.