1 John 3<\/p>\n
We are sons of God.\u00a0 What?\u00a0 We are transformed into the sons of God.\u00a0 Do you get that?\u00a0 This is a hard concept to fully enjoy because of our flesh.\u00a0 Because of God\u2019s love we have become sons of God through salvation & we belong to Him.\u00a0 This is an amazing truth.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Here is the problem; the world should not understand us because they did not understand Christ.\u00a0 There should be a difference in us than those who have not been transformed.<\/p>\n
This is a process; we are not yet totally perfect.\u00a0 This will come one day and we will be made like Jesus.\u00a0 In the mean time we should be doing more righteous things like Christ instead of sinful behavior like the devil.\u00a0 Verse 9 always messes with our theology of sin.\u00a0 In chapter 1 we are already told that we will sin, so what does this mean?\u00a0 It means a born again believer should not have a life continually given into sin.\u00a0 Also understand sin, all sin is a by-product of the devil and righteousness, all righteous acts are a byproduct of God.\u00a0 Even though we are children of God our actions can be sinful and not actions of God and His Spirit in us.\u00a0 This is our struggle in life.\u00a0 Verse 10 also includes loving our brother.\u00a0 You see we should always love one another.\u00a0 Even when a brother falls into sin we should still love one another.\u00a0 We do not celebrate the sin nor do we permit the sin, but we do not forsake a brother because of sin.<\/p>\n
It is okay that the world hates us, which should happen because of our love for God.\u00a0 Verse 13 tells not to be amazed that the world hates us.\u00a0 We are striving to get the world to accept us, we are striving to get the world to see their need and accept Jesus.<\/p>\n
Love your brothers in such a way that you are willing to sacrifice for them.\u00a0 We sacrifice our time to share in events in their life.\u00a0 Many activities at church should be attended for others not for ourselves.<\/p>\n
Love your brothers enough to give to them what they need.\u00a0 Never walk past a true need when you have the power to give to it.<\/p>\n
We are able to live as sons of God and live out His love because of the Spirit of God that abides in us, and confirms in us that we are His children.\u00a0 The Spirit should lead us to sacrifice for the community of the church.\u00a0 The Spirit should lead us to give to those around us.\u00a0 The Spirit should help us know who we are in Christ as we grow in this transformational work of being sons of God.<\/p>\n
Keep growing in the perfection of Christ.<\/p>\n
Share how the reading is going as well as any questions or concerns with us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"excerpt","protected":false},"author":1167,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","filesize_raw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[23,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible-reading","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1167"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=978"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":979,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/978\/revisions\/979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}