1 John 2:5–6
But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.
We love because He first loved us! Without love in our actions we are just making noise. Carla
1 John 4:12-16
No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected •in us. 13 By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. NKJV
No one has seen God. That is, in His full, manifest form. John argues that although no one has seen God, His character can be seen in believers who love as He does (John 1:18; 6:46).
In the Old Testament, figures like Abraham, Moses, and Isaiah had encounters with God, yet none involved witnessing God in His full glory—as He really is. John doesn’t consider Old Testament characters to have seen the fullness of God (Exodus 33:20)
God’s Spirit not only resides in believers, but teaches them the truth concerning the saving work of the incarnate Christ (1 John 4:14; 3:24).
Savior of the world describes the purpose of Christ’s incarnation—to rescue humanity from sin (1:7; 2:2; 4:10). John wants his audience to understand that properly responding to Christ’s saving act requires affirmation of Christ’s existence in bodily form (1:9; 4:2). By implication, the false teachers reject the basis of God’s plan of salvation by denying that Christ was the Son of God in the flesh.
God resides in him through the work of God as Holy Spirit in the life of a believer (2:24; 3:23–24).
Who resides in love resides in God. This phrase, which continues the thought from verse 15, represents the main point of John’s letter: A person who is truly a Christian and part of the Christian community correctly identifies Jesus as the incarnate Son of God. Christians demonstrate their belief in Jesus by loving others, admitting sin, and letting God transform their life (1:6–7; 2:10, 19). These actions also define a person as a true child of God and a member of the believing community. Faithlife Study Bible
Mutual abiding refers to the fellowship we have with God as a result of our salvation. The evidence that God abides in us and we in Him is the experience of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us. In the remainder of this passage (verses 12–16), John explains how a believer can know that the Spirit is working in his or her life (verses 15, 16). Abides, in this context refers to salvation rather than the fellowship that results from salvation. To be a Christian, a person must believe that Jesus is the Son of God. And we have known is parallel to “and we have seen” in verse 14.
Abides in love means the Christian lives within the sphere of God’s love. That love is both experienced and expressed through the Christian’s life. The NKJV Study Bible
1 John 3:23–24
And this is His commandment: that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as He gave us commandment.Now he who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.
John 1:18
No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.
John 3:17
For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
1 John 2:23–24
Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also.Therefore let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father.
Here’s what I know: Life seems to ignore the script we have in our mind.
But this is also true: when that happens, we walk. We walk toward, or we walk away. Either way, we begin a journey—a pilgrimage to find or restore or forgive or heal, or to forget or bury; or perhaps, just to have the deck of our world shuffled.
And gratefully, a Pilgrimage-Camino walk is a good reminder.
Its wisdom calls me daily to pick up my pack and march on. To trust, find beauty, and to be vulnerable. To share pain, joy, and connection. To, with practice, patience (lots of patience), faith, and grace, continue walking.
So. Sometimes we need a different way to measure what really matters.
This brings to mind my mentor, Lew Smedes’ reminder, "Gratitude dances though the open windows of our hearts. We cannot force it. We cannot create it. And we can certainly close our windows to keep it out. But we can also keep them open and be ready for the joy when it comes."
Living one open window at a time.
I once did a workshop where I asked the participants to describe life. One woman said, "Life is so… life is so… life is so… daily."
Yes. She's right. And that is the secret.
The miracle is that there need not be a miracle—just a slow drip of experience. Being mindful of small things; the ordinary is the hiding place for the holy.
Places where we are able to receive. And places from which we give: wholeheartedness, joy, grief, compassion, sorrow, kindness, grace, forgiveness, gladness. And until I understand that truth (until I take it to heart), I miss the point.
Or, in the words of William Kittredge, "Moments when nothing happened. What sweet nothing."
In other words, we don't run from the moment (even moments that unnerve and distress).
We don't suffocate the moment with stuff (physical and mental).
We don't sanitize the moment with platitudes.
We sit. We listen. We look. We taste. We smell. We see.
We look for the light of God in the most ordinary, and even the most dull, of contexts.
(I know that I preordain, when I hope or try to orchestrate, rather than just experience. I also know that whether it is, experience or relationship or liturgy or prayer or meditation or Camino, if you don't bring it with you, you're not going to find it there.) SabbathMoments
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