EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/8/2025 7:23 PM
My Worship Time Focus: Part 4 “How to Recognize an Overcomer”
Bible
Reading & Meditation Reference: 1 John 5:1-5
Message of the verses: “1 Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is
born of God, and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him. 2
By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe
His commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments;
and His commandments are not burdensome. 4 For whatever is born of God
overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the
world — our faith. 5 Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he
who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”
I
continue quoting from John MacArthur’s sermon in this Spiritual Diary.
“Now
let’s go to the second test to determine an overcomer. That was just the
review. The second test is very familiar to us again in John’s epistle. It is
love. We go from believing in right doctrine, sort of the doctrinal test, to
the moral or ethical test, and the second of John’s three tests presented here
to verify overcomers is love. Go back to verse 1. “Whoever loves the Father
loves the child born of Him.” Verse 2, “By this we know that we love the children
of God when we love God.” We’ll stop at that point. You can tell an overcomer
very simply. He or she loves God and loves whom God loves, the children born of
Him. New birth, regeneration not only brings us into a faith relationship with
God, it brings us into a love relationship with God and God’s own people. We
enter into a love relationship with the Father and with His beloved children.
“Back
to verse 1, “Whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him.” You can
tell who is an overcomer. They love God and they love those that are God’s.
This has been part of John’s emphasis all the way through. Go back to chapter 2
for a moment and verse 5. We’ve
been saying all along he cycles back to the same things. Chapter 2 verse
5, “Whoever keeps His Word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected.”
And when you see the love of God matured in someone, “By this we know that we
are in Him.” How do you know when you’re a Christian? Because you love God and
you love those whom God loves.
“Verse
11 – well, verse 10 and 11, “The one who loves his brother abides in the light.
There’s no cause for stumbling in him. The one who hates his brother is in
darkness, walks in darkness, doesn’t know where he’s going because the darkness
has blinded his eyes.” If you don’t love other believers, you’re not in the
light. If you’re in the light, you love your brother. Chapter 3 and verse 10,
again John winds his way back through the same truth, “By this” – he’s going to
give you the test here – “by this the children of God and the children of the
devil are obvious. Anyone who doesn’t practice righteousness is not of God, nor
the one who does not love his brother.” It’s about loving your brother. Verse
17 adds, “Whoever has the world’s good and beholds his brother in need and closes
his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? Little children,
let us not love with word or with tongue but in deed and truth, we shall know
by this that we’re of the truth and assure our heart before Him.” And so we
come back to the same principle there.
“Look
at chapter 4 verse 7, “Beloved, let us love one another for love is from God
and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who doesn’t love
doesn’t know God, for God is love.” Down to verse 12, “No one has beheld God at
any time. If we love one another God abides in us and His love is perfected in
us.” Verse 21, “This commandment we have from Him that the one who loves God
should love his brother also.”
“How
do you know you’re an overcomer? How do you know you’re a Christian? First of
all, because you continue to believe. You may have moments of doubt. They’re
never final. They’re never fatal because you have been given eternal life,
sustained in the perseverance of the saints by a faith that is indestructible.
How do you know you’re an overcomer? Because you love God and you love God
manifestly, that is to say you love God in a visible expression as you live
your life and you also love those whom God loves.
“Now
we’re not just talking about sentiment here. Loving God is not a matter of
sentimentality. Loving God
is a matter of desiring to honor and to please Him. Isn’t that what we
do when we love someone? The greater your love for someone, the greater the
compulsion of your heart to do good for them, to honor them, to show respect
and regard and to provide all that they need and more, to seek their pleasure,
to do their will. And so those who love God are caught up, consumed with
pursuing what honors the one they love. And then they also love those whom He
loves, the children of God. It all comes down to how you treat other believers
then. It’s the practicality of living your life for fellow believers. That’s
how you can tell a Christian. If they seek friendships outside the family of
God, if they have no compassion toward those in the family of God, if they
don’t literally hunger and thirst for spiritual fellowship with those who are
God’s, there’s no life in them. There’s no light in them. They walk in
darkness.”
3/8/2025 7:38 PM
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