1 John 3

Damage Control

Posted on by Betsy

Did you know that the phrase ‘damage control’ has been used in popular language since the end of the Second World War? The United States Navy developed damage control protocols after suffering massive attacks in battles. They had to move fast in an effort to contain or limit the amount of collateral damage that these events would bring. Now the Navy has a position for damage controllers on ships whose job is to assess a situation and limit destruction and mishaps. The phrase was picked up by the medical profession, which established a system of prioritizing treatment based on lessening the risk of death when dealing with multiple injuries at once. Today, we see government officials engaged in damage control when a scandal breaks out and every institution has a process for reacting to negative reports quickly in hopes of containing the bad press.

1 John 3 is a kind of literary damage control. Traditional thinking teaches us that the writer was the same John as the Gospel writer, but others think it was a follower of John known as the Elder. In any case, John was a man of advanced age who had oversight of the house churches near Ephesus. There was dissension among the members, (can you imagine??) and some had pulled away under the influence of an agitator named Diotrephes. John the Elder wrote to a leader of the congregation named Gaius with instructions and encouragement. Specifically, the subjects of righteousness, sin, spiritual parentage, and love were addressed.

1 John 3 (Common English Bible)

8 The person who practices sin belongs to the devil, because the devil has been sinning since the beginning. God’s Son appeared for this purpose: to destroy the works of the devil. 9 Those born from God don’t practice sin because God’s DNA remains in them. They can’t sin because they are born from God. 10 This is how God’s children and the devil’s children are apparent: everyone who doesn’t practice righteousness is not from God, including the person who doesn’t love a brother or sister.

The notion of the apple not falling far from the tree applies here. Those born of God don’t practice sin, but those born of the devil are neither righteous nor do they love their brother or sister. We understand righteousness in this context to mean being in right relationship with God, God’s creation, and God’s people. Righteousness involves obedience to God’s will and purpose for our lives: Not just avoiding sin but pursuing goodness. Habitual sin can be overcome by the blood of Christ, who came for the purpose of destroying the devil. The point is clear: Real righteousness is the greatest love we can experience, and real love is expressed in righteousness. Righteousness without love just makes you a Pharisee.

Is God trying to do damage control with your soul today? Are you lost in your practice of sin with nowhere to turn? Jesus was born so that the works of the devil could be destroyed in our lives once and for all. Is it time to get right with God? You can be a damage controller in your own life.

God’s DNA by Becca Ziegler

You Made it Disappear

Posted on by Betsy

Have you ever lain awake at night with your mind spinning over an insult or rejection? I sure have. I wish I was as strong as I apparently look when it comes to taking hits from people who are displeased with me. If you are a people pleaser, you know what I’m talking about. It is hard to come to the reality that someone simply doesn’t like you if you are that type of person. People pleasers suffer from any kind of rejection and the pain of a direct assault can last for months. Truth be told, part of the problem is that we keep poking at the injury like a sore spot in your mouth that you just can’t stop touching with your tongue. If you are also a people pleaser, my prayers go out to you! Sometimes I just wish I didn’t care so much.

The flip side of this personality type is that because we do care, we often feel and respond to other people’s pain in an effort to mitigate their suffering. I bet if you put people pleasers in a room, you would find that they volunteer in care ministries in their churches, donate to the food pantry, go on mission trips, and extend Christ ‘s compassion to hurting people in the world. So here’s a thought, people pleasers: When you’re sleepless over an injury get up and do something good for someone. That will mitigate your own pain, too.

Our Scripture today talks about practicing real love. It succinctly makes a connection between Christ’s sacrifice for us and how we are called to live sacrificially for others. In our Message translation, Eugene Peterson contends that when we see a need and do nothing, God’s love disappears, and we are the ones who made it disappear.

1 John 3:16-24

16-17 This is how we’ve come to understand and experience love: Christ sacrificed his life for us. This is why we ought to live sacrificially for our fellow believers, and not just be out for ourselves. If you see some brother or sister in need and have the means to do something about it but turn a cold shoulder and do nothing, what happens to God’s love? It disappears. And you made it disappear.

This should be something we practice daily in everything we do. When you post negative things about someone on social media, you are making God’s love disappear. When you speak out with anger when you could have held your tongue, you make God’s love disappear. When a disagreement causes you to leave a relationship and you burn the house down on your way out, you make God’s love disappear.

When We Practice Real Love

18-20 My dear children, let’s not just talk about love; let’s practice real love. This is the only way we’ll know we’re living truly, living in God’s reality. It’s also the way to shut down debilitating self-criticism, even when there is something to it. For God is greater than our worried hearts and knows more about us than we do ourselves.

When people pleasers like me get attacked, it’s not just the initial injury that keeps us awake. It is our incessant need to review the situation over and over and over again, criticizing our own actions and condemning our behavior. Our worried hearts get stuck on replay, and even when we try to repair the relationship, we fail to shut down the internal turmoil that the bad encounter has brought. It is hard for us to accept that there are some people and situations where resolution isn’t possible, and truthfully, the other party doesn’t care. They have moved on to criticize someone else while we allow them to live rent free in our heads.

That’s when it’s time to let go and give it over to God. God is greater than our worried hearts and knows more about us than we do ourselves.

21-24 And friends, once that’s taken care of and we’re no longer accusing or condemning ourselves, we’re bold and free before God! We’re able to stretch our hands out and receive what we asked for because we’re doing what he said, doing what pleases him. Again, this is God’s command: to believe in his personally named Son, Jesus Christ. He told us to love each other, in line with the original command. As we keep his commands, we live deeply and surely in him, and he lives in us. And this is how we experience his deep and abiding presence in us: by the Spirit he gave us.

This last section is the real goal for everyone, people pleasers or not. God invites us to please him, not others. He invites us to love one another, keep his commands, live deeply and surely in him, and experience his abiding is us through the Sprit that he gave on. So if you are still feeling the sting of someone’s negativity, let it go.

God has set you free.

Bold and Set Free by Michelle Robertson

What Kind of Love

Posted on by Betsy

The phenomenon that is known as Taylor Swift has taken over the world. Our local movie theater is showing her Eras Tour movie, and the place is packed with people of all ages in Taylor Swift outfits. Folks are disappointed that the special Eras Tour popcorn bucket was in short supply, and they missed getting it, resulting in the theater having to apologize and offer a future bucket as soon as the next shipment comes in. And Is it just me, or are all the young girls suddenly sporting bangs? I like that. I’ve been wearing bangs since before Swift was born.

According to an article in Time magazine published on August 24th, 2023, analysts estimate that the Eras Tour will likely surpass the $1 Billion mark by March of 2024, when Swift will be touring internationally. Beyond the concert sales, fans are spending a lot of money on merchandise.. The Eras Tour is projected to generate close to $5 billion in consumer spending in the United States alone. “If Taylor Swift were an economy, she’d be bigger than 50 countries,” said Dan Fleetwood, President of QuestionPro Research and Insights. This absolutely blows my mind. The scope of her influence is beyond the imagination. Her work and her image are recognized around the world.

Our passage today had me thinking about image and recognition, but in a much more humble way. One of the greatest gifts we receive from God is the gift of adoption. We are called the children of God, but the world does not recognize that:

1 John 3 (Common English Bible)

 See what kind of love the Father has given to us in that we should be called God’s children, and that is what we are! Because the world didn’t recognize him, it doesn’t recognize us.

Like the Swifties who try to look like their icon, we will be converted into the image of Christ when he appears. We’ll be like him, and we will see him as he is. I think that being able to behold his glory will trigger that moment of complete transformation. We won’t just be dressed up … we actually will take on the image of Christ for ourselves.

2 Dear friends, now we are God’s children, and it hasn’t yet appeared what we will be. We know that when he appears we will be like him because we’ll see him as he is. 3 And all who have this hope in him purify themselves even as he is pure.

So, our task as we wait is to purify ourselves. Christ is pure and calls us to be like him. Purity of heart, purity of mind, purity of purpose, and purity of intention are things that we can pursue while we wait. The Prince of Peace of all the eras invites us to be like him.

Show Me the Way by Kathy Schumacher

True Love

Posted on by Betsy

At what point in your life do you think you really began to understand love? Love is introduced to us by our parents, if we have good ones. The love of family is a foundation upon which children grow in their understanding of love. But a child’s love is selfish and limited. It isn’t what it will be when they mature.

Now think about the first time you thought you were “in love.” Maybe you ended up with that person, or maybe that was just a test run for the real thing when it came along.

Loving someone in a long term, committed relationship probably comes closer to the real thing. I have been tremendously blessed to be totally in love with the same guy for over 40 years. And as good as that is, there is another love that I have experienced that is closer yet to true love…when I became a mother.

Parental love is sacrificial, whole-hearted, life-long, and often exhausting. You never stop worrying about your children and you know you would do anything for their happiness.

Parental love is what God feels for you. You are his blessed child, and he would do anything for your happiness…even send his only son to die on a cross for you. His love for you is true love.

1 John 3 (The Message)

16-17 This is how we’ve come to understand and experience love: Christ sacrificed his life for us. This is why we ought to live sacrificially for our fellow believers, and not just be out for ourselves. If you see some brother or sister in need and have the means to do something about it but turn a cold shoulder and do nothing, what happens to God’s love? It disappears. And you made it disappear.

Love is real when it is given away without any thought of recompense, return, or cost. Love is real when someone else’s needs trump your own. Love is real when it looks like Jesus.

When We Practice Real Love

18-20 My dear children, let’s not just talk about love; let’s practice real love. This is the only way we’ll know we’re living truly, living in God’s reality. It’s also the way to shut down debilitating self-criticism, even when there is something to it. For God is greater than our worried hearts and knows more about us than we do ourselves.

John challenges us to practice REAL LOVE by giving ourselves away just as Jesus gave himself. Just talking about love won’t cut it. Doing love-in-action is the true measure of our love for Jesus. When you live sacrificially for those around you, you are truly living in God’s reality.

21-24 And friends, once that’s taken care of and we’re no longer accusing or condemning ourselves, we’re bold and free before God! We’re able to stretch our hands out and receive what we asked for because we’re doing what he said, doing what pleases him. Again, this is God’s command: to believe in his personally named Son, Jesus Christ. He told us to love each other, in line with the original command.

When we commit acts of love in Jesus’ name, we are doing what pleases him. He told us to love one another. This is his greatest command.

As we keep his commands, we live deeply and surely in him, and he lives in us. And this is how we experience his deep and abiding presence in us: by the Spirit he gave us.

So go out today and commit an act of true, unconditional, and sacrificial love for someone who needs love. Just as you live deeply in Jesus, so he lives in you. Go and be Jesus today!

Love in Bloom

God’s Children

Posted on by Betsy

A mother listens to the baby monitor in her three-year-old’s room during “nap” time. Her daughter is engaged in an elaborate tea party. The special guest at the table is her one-year-old cousin who lives and is currently located in another state. The mother smiles as she hears the conversation between “Baby Layne” and “Nor-Nor.” In the little girl’s mind, this is real. The imagination is strong with this one!

It is delightful to enter the mind of a child. There is so much hope, innocence, wonder, and magic there. The purity of a child’s heart is something to behold.

In 1st John, we see the idea of the purity of children used as a metaphor for how we change when we become followers of the Father. We become God’s children. This means that when he appears, we shall see him as his is. Our hope purifies us, as Christ is pure. With the confident innocence of a child, we can approach the throne of God.

1 John 3 (Common English Bible)

 See what kind of love the Father has given to us in that we should be called God’s children, and that is what we are! Because the world didn’t recognize him, it doesn’t recognize us.

2 Dear friends, now we are God’s children, and it hasn’t yet appeared what we will be. We know that when he appears we will be like him because we’ll see him as he is. 3 And all who have this hope in him purify themselves even as he is pure.

That purity is in jeopardy when it comes to sin. Sin will be received by the Father as an act of rebellion. Sin separates us from his presence and stains our souls. Thankfully, we know that he appeared to take away our sins.

4 Every person who practices sin commits an act of rebellion, and sin is rebellion. 5 You know that he appeared to take away sins, and there is no sin in him. 6 Every person who remains in relationship to him does not sin. Any person who sins has not seen him or known him.

7 Little children, make sure no one deceives you. The person who practices righteousness is righteous, in the same way that Jesus is righteous.

John reminds us not to fall into deception. Righteousness is the way of the children of God. It is the life Jesus calls us to live. We are called God’s children, and that is what we are!

See What Kind of Love by Michelle Robertson