As the apostle John opened this brief personal letter, he rejoiced to find Christians walking in faithfulness. We who have been saved have been so by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Now, we are determined to be found faithful. God help us keep living faithfully for Jesus!

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Is a little knowledge about spiritual matters a dangerous thing? It is, if it takes away your certainty in Jesus. Thankfully, we don’t have to live with that kind of uncertainty. We can know we belong to Christ and we can have blessed confidence in Him.

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Not all of God’s lessons are easy, but all of them are good. Through various means, God teaches us to put our eyes on Jesus and to keep our eyes on Jesus, always trusting His word. And this is a lesson we need to learn again and again.

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Do you believe the testimony of God concerning Christ? If you do, you have great confidence of eternal life! If you don’t, you don’t. But John wants you to have this confident assurance. Better yet, God wants you to have this confident assurance. There is only one thing you must do: believe the testimony of God!

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God’s people need God’s presence. It is how we worship God and serve Him. For the ancient Israelites, the presence of God was about to depart from the temple, but they were not left without hope, because He promised to return to them and dwell among them. Good news for the Christian: He already dwells among/in us!

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Do you want to walk in the blessing of God? Do you want power over the world today and confidence for the future? Then do like your Lord Jesus and love other Christians! He has already saved you by His grace; now go and love others like He has loved you!

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As God prepared to have His glory leave the Jerusalem temple, He used a spiritual vision to show Ezekiel why He was leaving: the abominations of rampant idolatry. We tend to forget how much God hates idolatry. It is no minor thing to Him; it is an absolute abomination. Thankfully, we have the Lord Jesus Christ who saves us and seals us unto Himself as His own.

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As John continues his discussion about love, we see love described in two ways: (1) as a command, (2) as a sign. Why? Because amazingly, God loves *us*. We see the extent of God’s love for us when we look at Jesus and the cross. For those of us who believe in Him and confess Him as our Lord, we cannot help but be transformed by Him with His love for us overflowing to our love for others.

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Jerusalem would go through some very difficult things before they finally learned their lesson. They would face horribly difficult judgments from God, but those very judgments would be the things that would bring them to a true knowledge of God. What might it take for us to know Jesus as the true God?

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How are we to discern truth from error? How can we tell what is of the Holy Spirit, and what is not? Thankfully, the Bible tells us exactly how we can know what is of God and what is not. Let us be discerning, and by the grace of God, let us test the spirits according to the word of God!

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