To encourage others and help us grow in our faith and understanding please be sure to read and/or share your comments about today’s passage in the reply bar at the bottom of the page. Let’s spur one another on to love and good deeds.
Today’s Scripture: 2 John 1:5-8 (S.O.A.P. 2 John 1:6)
Warning Against False Teachers 5 But now I ask you, lady (not as if I were writing a new commandment to you, but the one we have had from the beginning), that we love one another. 6 (Now this is love: that we walk according to His commandments.) This is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning; thus you should walk in it. 7 For many deceivers have gone out into the world, people who do not confess Jesus as Christ coming in the flesh. This person is the deceiver and the antichrist! 8 Watch out, so that you do not lose the things we have worked for, but receive a full reward.
NEW: Prayer Focus for this week – Spend time praying for your church.
We are commanded to walk and live according to his word. This means to show your love by listening, helping, respecting and not judging others. We are to treat others as brothers and sisters of christ.
In John 13:34 Jesus said, “So now I am giving you a “New Commandment”: Love each other, just as I have loved you, you should love each other.” Here, he is warning those in this congregation not to forget or turn away from the commandment but to walk – or actually – to live in this manner. When we are busy loving ourselves more than God or our ‘neighbors/others’ we will more easily be turned away from God. If I live according to His commandment to love then we will be living in obedience to God and the enemy will flea … “Submit yourselves (live in obedience) then to God, resist the devil and he will flea from you.” James 4:7