1 John 5:20 --- 20 And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.
With only two verses left I thought the journey in 1 John would close out today, but I've learned when walking with God and following His lead, the path and pace don't always go according to expectation. To be honest, this really threw me for a loop at 5:30 AM.
If you didn't know, The Lord of the Rings books and movies are my all-time favorite works of fiction. I have read them all multiple times and watched the movies multiple times (extended editions only please! LOL).
Why do I share this? Because this has been a journey and as I saw two verses left, I felt the Shire was in view. Like Bilbo Baggins must've felt as he neared home after his great adventure in The Hobbit. Then, when I got to this morning and found the Lord stopped me at verse 20, being extremely honest, I was a bit agitated. I felt as Bilbo must've when he arrived at the Shire to find his home being sold because the other hobbits thought he was dead. LOL!
All of this just to be transparent on the fact that it took me a bit to get myself in order and go back to the Lord with an apology for allowing my expectations and feelings to slow me down in following where He led. I share it because He's told me to share these things, to show that walking with Him is real. It's a relationship. It's not some perfect religious thing that is clean, neat, and tidy at all moments. We're human and most times we're a mess. Thank goodness He loves us!
Enough of my Lord of the Rings and Hobbit rambling, on to the absolute most important thing, God's Word! As the whole book of 1 John comes to a close, its brought back to one single thing…
JESUS. Abiding in Him.
It says, "So that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ."
The "we may know" is actually one word in the Greek, ginōskō and depending on how it's used it has different meanings. It is used here to mean: to become acquainted with. It is also a Present tense verb, which means it is ongoing, actively happening now. This is relationship with Him. Not a religious checklist or some cold memorized knowledge of the info contained within the Bible. It's about walking with Him daily and getting to KNOW Him!
The final thing that really jumped out to me is, "the Son of God has come and has given us understanding,". We didn't achieve or work our way to understanding, it is given to us. It is not something we attain. Proverbs 3:5-6 clearly tells us not to lean on our human understanding. As I type this up, I'm reminded of 1 John 4:19, we love because He first loved us. We cannot work our way to understanding or salvation, so we better make sure we KNOW that we KNOW Jesus, because the only understanding that matters is given to us by Him.
That's a wrap for today. Have a blessed Saturday. As always, Be the Berean, get in your Bible and see what He has to say to you on this!
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