Friday, November 1, 2013

Lessons from 1st John: Truth teaching

Want to be popular?  Give the people what they want!  Tell everyone what they want to hear, and they'll love you!  That seems to be the message of our culture today.  But it isn't biblical.

Too often in our society, we've become afraid to call sin sin for fear of pushing away people from God or for being seen as politically incorrect.  But if we do not acknowledge sin in our world, then people forget that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and we don't understand why we need Jesus to be our Savior.  Ignoring sin truly is a disservice, for it gives people false confidence that they're doing okay, that they're really a good person who messes up here or there.  But this isn't what the Bible teaches; the Bible teaches that we've sinned to the point that we literally killed God;  that is the reality of who we are.  And God, in His great mercy, sent His Son to save us by dying in our place on the cross that we may repent and have life again. that through His Spirit we are able to once again live holy lives.

1 John teaches that false teaching is easily accepted, while godly teaching isn't.  People don't like to be confronted about their sin, so standing up for our Christian beliefs is going to bring us under fire.  LORD, please give us the courage to stand for Your truth.

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