He Does

 

1John 2:24-28

“Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you.  If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father.”

I have a full understanding that most of the people who receive this are better educated than the writer so I must ask you to bear with me when I define a word like abide.  Abide: to remain; to stand fast; to stay, reside, to submit to and carry out, as a decision.  With that word defined, what is it that you heard from the beginning?  Could it be John’s opening statement about Jesus Christ?  “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life – the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us.” (1 John 1:1-2) 

John also wanted to make sure that we understood that not only was He God, but that to have fellowship and to have a relationship we must take seriously this message from Jesus and was recorded in 1 John 1:5-6, “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.  If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.”  Often, while studying the Bible, it seems I revert back to a small child in my questioning; this word keeps coming to my mind, “Why”!  I no longer ask how, I’ve come to the understanding my Lord Jesus Christ is the “How,” but I’m still asking why would the Creator want to have fellowship with us?  I’ve come to this deep truth, “He does.”  John 3:16; Ephesians 2: 4-5, give us the “He Does.”

My search for answers to my why, took me back to Genesis 1:26, “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.  And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”  This thought came into my mind, when God formed man out of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, man not only became a living creature, but unlike any other creature, man had the breath of God living in him. They allowed the enemy to talk them out of abiding, and they went from residing with God to an independent life. That’s what Adam and Eve gave up wanting to be like God, and that breath of God was withdrawn. That is why God sent His Son, His only Son, because He loves us, He wants to walk in the garden of our lives and have fellowship with us, and that’s why we must abide in Him.

The other thing that is crystal clear is that like Adam and Eve, we are easily deceived into running after that life of independent living, but God has spoken, and He will not have fellowship with anyone who walks in darkness.  The apostle John, gives this insight: “And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming.”  (1John 2:28)

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice