Friday,
February 10, 2023
If anyone claims, “I am living in the light,” but hates a fellow believer, that person is still living in darkness. Anyone who loves a fellow believer is living in the light and does not cause others to stumble. But anyone who hates a fellow believer is still living and walking in darkness. Such a person does not know the way to go, having been blinded by the darkness.
1 John 2:9-11
John, the beloved apostle wrote about
loving others…a lot!
But John wasn’t always so
compassionate; at one point in time, he and his brother James were
nicknamed the sons of thunder[1] by Jesus. This was because the brothers were prone to anger
and knee-jerk reactions.
On the road to Jerusalem some of the
crowds rejected Jesus. James and John asked for permission to call down
fire from heaven to burn up the unbelievers. Jesus rebuked them and they
had to recheck their theology of crowd control.[2]
Question?
How does a man go from wanting to
incinerate a whole crowd for simply disagreeing with your position…to one who
says that kind of hate means you don’t know the first thing about
God?
Pretty simple, actually; John was not
so set in his dark ways that he couldn’t entertain the possibility that he was
wrong. That’s called “being teachable.”
And when that’s possible, then light
coming into your life is also possible. And the kind of light Jesus
brings will dispel a multitude of darkness!
Paul said to be
transformed by the renewing of your mind.[3] This is what had happened to John, a thunderous, judgmental,
hard-headed reactionary; He entertained the truth of Jesus’ kind of love and it
changed everything.
John went from that kind of mindset
where you’re absolutely certain you could straighten out anybody, because you’ve
got a corner on the truth market, and everyone should do things your way…..to
living in the light of God’s truth, that loving others is the only way to keep
from stumbling around in life.
John learned the humility of love; he
learned how to live in the light.
For You Today
How’s the light in your world today?
If it needs turning up a little, do a
love-check on your relationships; entertain the possibility that loving others
is better than convincing others you’re right.
Better to be beloved, than a son
of thunder!
There are about 2,000 devotional
posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions
library. To dig deeper on
today’s topic, explore some of these:
Where Love and Truth Meet and Against the Tide
This is an updated version of “Living in LIght published on Rocky Road Devotions August 13,
2013
Images: Title via Wikimedia Commons Images without
citation are either personal property of the author, or in public domain.
Unless noted, Scripture quoted
from The New Living Translation©
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