EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/9/2025 10:44 PM
My Worship Time Focus: Part 5 “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.
“We
know we love God when we love the ones He loves. If it’s a chore for you to
show up here and if it’s just your goal when you get here to try to escape the
place without having to encounter anybody and you’re only here because your
wife drags you here, that’s a pretty good indication that whatever you may
think, you don’t love God. Or you’d be coming into this place every time you
had an opportunity so that you could join with the people who are His people whom
you also love in a collective offering of praise to Him and to hear the one who
love speak His Word to you.
“I
can tell when a student comes to the college whether or not they love God by
how they treat the opportunity to study His Word, by how interested they are in
being involved in a church, by how they approach chapel, Bible study, by how
they treat fellow students. We’re not talking again just about sentimentality
here. We’re talking about the kind of love that is the only love the New
Testament really exalts and that is agapaō love, the love of the will. The love
that says if you see somebody with a need you meet it. The love that is
sacrificial. The love that is not necessarily dependent upon attractiveness.
But the love that is simply demonstrated on every front where there is a need.
The love that enjoys fellowship. The love that is eager to make whatever
sacrifice is necessary for the good of another. It’s how you approach God and
how you approach His people that demonstrates whether you really love them.
“If
you love God, you long more than anything else to be in His presence, to hear
Him speak, to praise Him and worship Him. And if you love His people, you long
to be with them and to be the source of their needs being met as much as you
can. You pray for them. You nurture them. You counsel them. You speak to them
kindly. You exhort them. You encourage them. You confront them. You do whatever
you need to do – all those one-anothers of the New Testament – for their
spiritual benefit because you care.
“There’s
a third characteristic that marks those who are overcomers, not just faith and
love but obedience – but obedience. Look at verse 3 here; it really comes at
the end of verse 2. “We know that we love the children of God when we love God”
– and here it comes – “and observe His commandments. For this is the love of
God, that we keep His commandments, and his commandments are His commandments
are not burdensome.” Now let’s put this together. We believe in God. We believe in Christ, who is
God. And that faith produces love and that love produces obedience. If I
believe that Christ is who He is, if I believe Christ is exactly who the New
Testament says He is, if I believe God is who the Scripture reveals Him to be,
then He is going to draw out of my heart all my love and all my praise and all
my adoration and all my interest and all my attention. And I’m going to be
consumed with Him as the priority of my life.
“And
as a second priority I’m going to be consumed with the people He loves because
whoever He loves I love. That’s
just how it works. And if I truly love Him that way, the expression of
that love is going to come in keeping His commandments, and considering His
commandments as not burdensome – not burdensome. If you love somebody and they
ask you to do something, you can’t do it fast enough. Right? True love always
issues in obedience, always rushes to the will of the person who asks, always
longs to meet the need.
“The
genuine proof of faith is loving obedience, sustained loving obedience. And the
only way that you can really demonstrate that you love God is to obey Him,
that’s the only way. That is to seek His honor and His glory, to show Him
respect and worship, to reverence Him. If you believe as a true Christian that
God is God and Christ is God and Christ is Lord and God is sovereign, you’re
going to find God the object of all your affections, and you’re going to love
God, and you’re going to love Him so truly that it’s going to show up in your
desire to obey Him, and His Laws will never be burdensome to you anymore than
it’s burdensome to do what someone you love profoundly in this life asks you to
do. You keep His commandments.
“The
end of verse 2, “Observe His commandments” That’s poieō in the Greek. It means
to continue to do them. It’s action – continue to do them. A different word is
immediately used in verse 3, “We keep His commandments.” A different word from
tēreō. We don’t just do them. This word means regard them. We protect them. And
that is to say we’ve gone from action to attitude. We not only do what God
commands us to do, but we guard what He commands us to do as a sacred treasure.
We’re eager to do that. We don’t find that burdensome at all, and that’s what
Jesus had in mind when He said, “Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me. For My
yoke is easy and my burden is light, and you’ll find rest for your souls.” If
you hook up with Me, if you take My yoke, it’s not going to be burdensome like the yoke of the Law
that you’ve been under with the Pharisees. In John 14:15 Jesus
said, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” Verse 21 of John 14, “He
who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me. And he who loves
Me will be loved by My Father and I will love him and will disclose Myself to
him.” Boy, what a promise.
3/9/2025
10:58 PM
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