When days were calm and times were bright;
We smiled with joy at the sight;
For we could see that things were fair;
The summer breeze and fragrant air.
The family ties were held on tight
And love was there when things were right.
We laughed and sang without a care;
For we were with our loved ones there.
But as time passed our smiles would fade;
When we saw death and times were gray;
We watched our loved ones fade away.
We saw that good times come and go;
They hit us hard how could we know?
That things could change so rapidly;
That tears would bring us to our knees?
The storms of life were dark and gray;
The rain hit hard as lives would sway;
And many went their chosen way.
Some thought that drugs would ease their pain
Or alcohol would numb the brain;
And many would not be sane again.
They lost all hope for better days.
To bad they did not look for light;
To guide them through those storms in life;
To navigate them through the night.
To reassure them storms do fade;
That faith would show them all the Way;
And God would lead them to the day.
When ships are caught in stormy gale;
When frantic wind would rip the sail;
The sailor looked into the dark of night,
For the lighthouse and its guiding light;
A light to save them from the storm;
To a place secure and warm.
In the book of John I read one day;
How God came to earth to guide our way.
How He was born the light of man;
And how we then did not understand.
He came as a child and yet divine;
The very One who made all things;
The Light of Life would we believe?
The One who guides our destiny.
Christ, the Savior of mankind;
Had a plan that He should die;
To save us from our sin inside;
To make us clean and give us life.
Just believe in Him not man;
And He will make you Born Again.
The storms in life will come and go;
I’ve been through many this I know;
That I can trust my Lord in them.
He is the light to every man;
To every woman, girl and boy;
The Only One who can give joy;
For in the morning joy will come;
When we’ve learned to trust Gods only Son.
The lighthouse in the storms do save;
If in life’s darkness, we are lost;
It shows the way we need to go;
Reminds us Jesus paid the cost;
With His own blood to save the lost.
He is the only Way I know.
His love has always calmed my storms;
He’s kept me safe, secure and warm.
For God so loved the world;
That’s us;
In Him we should believe and trust.
Aiden Wilson Tozer (April 21, 1897 – May 12, 1963) was an American Christian pastor, author, magazine editor, and spiritual mentor. Self-taught theologian. Fearless preacher. Gifted writer. Man of the inner life. A.W. Tozer, called by many a “modern-day prophet.” Observing contemporary Christian living, Tozer felt the church was on a dangerous course toward compromising with “worldly” concerns. He was a man who was obsessed with the glory and the holiness of God and making it known to others.
The Beloved Apostle is just reminding his readers what Jesus, Himself had stated. From this his conclusion cannot be denied. If you are joined with Christ Jesus, you have life. The Son of God is the source of that life. We can further deduce other scenarios from this; education does not provide us with eternal life; philosophy and the sciences do not provide us with eternal life. By the same token, we can say beyond doubt that neither is good works or religion and thus the institutionalized churches cannot provide us with eternal life. The ONLY conclusion, the ONLY source of eternal life to a believer, is to him who believes on Jesus Christ as the Son of God and His voluntary sacrifice on the Cross and His Resurrection afterwards for the payment of our (all of mankind’s) sins!
Then John continues on with the clearest terms possible of why he has chosen to write this very theme and why he wants it understood so emphatically. 
With the affirmation and confirmation of their faith in believing, John is reminding them that they can keep on believing for nothing can rob them of that belief once they are truly “in the know.” As believers in the Son of God, in Christ Jesus AS Savior, we must persevere and continue to strive forward in the faith. To pull back from believing, to start to allow doubts to rule our lives would be the same as doing nothing. The enemy would love nothing more than to cause you to linger in doubts to the point of doing absolutely nothing as far as striving forward in faith. This is why encouraging one another is such an important part of a mature believer’s walk in the Spirit. This is why the Beloved Apostle is so adamant on returning to the same thought over and over again.
“For a good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.” – Luke 6:43-45
Well, so it is with certain ministries or servants called to do certain things. If we have been appointed to “feed” the flock for instance. We AREN’T going to feed them rotten food and we certainly aren’t going to let someone else rotten food if we see that those someone’s are irresponsible AND bearers of bad “food” or fruit! For the Church, the Body of Christ to grow strong in the Lord, the individual members have to get away from this earthly “bad” fruit called political correctness and start being more willing to feed the truth to the sheep!
If a man loves sports, the majority of his conversation will either be about sports or will always come back to sports. If a person loves the gathering of wealth, either their conversations will be based mostly on that OR they will bring the conversation back to that topic. Why? Because what a person loves, what they know intimately is what they enjoy and desire to speak of. Human nature in that regard does not change and anyone who has been attempting to SERVE God and His children for any amount of time will know that to be true.
If however, you are getting a steady stream of love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control and the like from a person’s heart, you cannot mistake the stamp or the imprint of the Holy Spirit upon that person’s life.
It just seems lately I have had to take part in that role a little bit more than I ever have in the past. I truly believe it is because Christ Jesus, our Redeemer is standing on the threshold of His imminent return to gather His Body, the True Church.
This is MAN’S assumed wisdom at work and those who are abiding in Christ Jesus can see it unfolding before our very eyes!! Which leads me to ANOTHER aspect of this situation. Many, so-called “Christian” churches all over the world and particularly here in the U.S. have chosen in their vast wisdom to justify rampant and blatant sinfulness and to state with their own justification why God “will” accept it; thus misleading thousands if not millions!
So now I want to share with you what I have read and just so you know, I have been reading the Psalms in the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, the NLT, just for the ease of reading. You can read 
We don’t often as Christians, followers of Christ Jesus even think of Passover because we recognize Jesus as our Passover Lamb given once and for all, for all of mankind. The Apostle Peter wrote, 
Since God’s Character and His very Nature does NOT change and His Word is eternal and unchanging, then what was once sin and abhorrent to God Almighty (and I might add the reason Christ Jesus came to earth) is still, to this very day, sin and abhorrent. God’s Character and Nature is Just, Holy and Pure. Yes, He is merciful and gracious by the very fact that He DID send His Son to pay the penalty for OUR sins, for He Himself is sinless! But in that unconditional Agape (love) He still does not condone or justify sinful and unrighteous behavior!
God has given His children safety and security under His sheltering wings. If we must stay at home and follow the “wise” government guidelines, do not forget that God Almighty, OUR Heavenly Father (not the government’s) is STILL in control and watching out for us! We can use this time to become reacquainted with Him AS a loving Father. We can rediscover what is most important in the lives He HAS blessed us with. We don’t have to panic, for the “angel of fear” will pass right over your homes and you know why? Because the doorposts of your heart have been sprinkled with the Blood of the Passover Lamb, Christ Jesus and His Holy Spirit is ABIDING in you as you abide in Him!! Now how AWESOME and reassuring is that? It gives me chills just sitting here writing about it!
Will it be inconvenient? It already is with all the binge buying and hoarding that panicking people are doing. Will it be annoying? Yeah, but we can still have that spiritual Joy deep down inside that is promised by our Heavenly Father because of our place within Christ Jesus and His abiding by His Spirit within each of us!
However, since we will be delving into an area of some controversy that has been evolving over the years I will state this fact and many of you who HAVE followed my teaching know I am adamant about this: The Holy Spirit IS Truth. (As we shall see in some following Scripture). I firmly believe that He inspired the written Word, though it was written by many different hands, it has His Signature on each and every book recognized as Biblical Canon. I further believe that the Holy Spirit did NOT stop inspiring mankind, but even today, ACCORDING to the written Word is STILL leading, guiding and counseling His servants through His inspiration. Thus, through the generations, I believe that those translators who deemed to provide a more accurate reading AND translation for study AND instruction were also inspired by the Holy Spirit, who guided them in their translation efforts.
First of all, let’s set some ground-work. The Old Testament, the covenant between God and mankind, specifically His children was set up with a series of laws and rituals that were never meant to accomplish the act of Redemption, but rather, when taken in faith as a type and shadow of the coming Savior, it was the faith by which God’s chosen children were justified. You can read this throughout the Book of Hebrews. In the ritual sacrifices, water AND blood were a main component in the preparation of the offerings.
When you realize the purpose of the WHOLE Bible, the reason God gave it to mankind to begin with, then when you open it up, the Books as a whole and Letters written as a whole start to make sense and the true treasures found in the individual Scripture verses can also be plumbed.
If there is one thing I have learned over the many years of teaching and preaching, it is that WHATEVER the Lord does in the natural concerning mankind, it is a shadow, a type of what He is doing or has done in the Spiritual realm. For anyone to think that this temporary natural existence is all there is to life, they are truly blind, for this is only a shadow of things to come in the eternal. As the Apostle Paul so eloquently stated it, 
But as the Body of Christ as a whole, with Christ Jesus the Head, we are DOING what He commands. We are ACTING towards others by His command. This brings into perspective all the teaching in 
The Bride of Christ was also created from the side of Man; but in this case the Son of Man, Jesus Christ. Look at what the Apostle Paul again tells us in Corinthians:
“In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.” – Ephesians 1:7
The Bride is AWAITING the Bridegroom (
One other point I’d like to make concerning our love for our Brothers and Sisters and how to tell its genuineness. The world loves ITS own, or at least what it knows to be love to them who are spiritually blinded, but it is a love based on natural or secular reasons. They love because they are kind, or rich, or educated, or of the same religious denomination. God’s children and their love is not constrained to those base, natural ideas, for we love one another because we BELONG to the same Father and thus too – one another!
I heard this example once used for another situation and yet it is perfect here; when you tell a mother or a father to take care of their child, you are only telling her to do something she already has a heart and a desire to do. In essence, you are just reminding her/him of the desire that is already a part of you. Sometimes taking care of a child has its difficult moments, anyone who has ever had a child knows this to be true, but despite the difficulties, because you truly and sincerely love them, you do what is necessary to care for them. So it is with following God’s commandments. The Lord’s commandments first of all are what is best for us as His children but even beyond that with our newly regenerated spirit, it is what we wholeheartedly desire to do, thus as John says, 
But – the Apostle assures us that the man (or woman) born of God, renewed and regenerated by the Holy Spirit, born-again (
John is bringing us back to something he has already established in our hearts; 
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD 
I John 5:9-11
1 John 5:9-11, “If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for this is the witness of God which He has testified of His Son. He who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself; he who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of His Son. And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.”
The Apostle John has been talking about the witnesses or the testimony that verifies and acknowledges Jesus Christ, not just as the Son of God, but the true Anointed of God, to be Savior and Redeemer.
John continues on with this line of thought concerning the true witness concerning Christ Jesus. He uses a hard to argue with statement in that, “If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater.” This is an easy statement for anyone to relate too. After all, this is a part of our lives, not just in the social arenas but also in the affairs of dealings with various businesses. We trust the words of our friends and those we have dealings with and we HOPE that they are honest and above board, yet we know that very often there are those who wish to deceive for monetary gain or for various other reasons. Sometimes it is just a matter of mistaken testimony and not always just outright deceit. Nonetheless, the Apostle is telling us that in comparison to our everyday dealings with our fellow man, the greater testimony belongs to God Almighty.
Remember, John tells us that the witness is from and of God and even if you discount the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit from the previous verse 7 as we have discussed in our previous study, here we can see that God Almighty, the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit are all encompassed as witnesses in God Himself! So there can be and there should be no doubt whatsoever concerning Christ Jesus as the Son of God! Again, within God Himself, these three Characters of the Triune God are three that testify to the truth of Christ Jesus as the Son!
Now continuing on with John’s theme of witness and testimony, he goes on to write about the evidence of even ANOTHER witness. When a person accepts Christ Jesus’ gift of Salvation through Him and the sacrifice He made, God, our Heavenly Father seals the truth WITHIN that person by the very witness of the abiding Holy Spirit. So, those who believe God’s witness and testimony have the TRUTH of that witness within themselves!
So now, a man who accepts Jesus Christ within himself has not just the outward testimony as described before, but now has an inner testimony to the truth as well! Remember the words of the Apostle Paul, “Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” – 2 Corinthians 5:16-17.
Most everyone remembers verse 17 of Paul’s statement but look at how verse 16 confirms what the Apostle John is also saying; “now, we regard no one according to the flesh, even Christ Jesus whom we’ve known according to the flesh.” So the testimony, the witness of the three that agree, though obvious to all according to the flesh, their witness is infallible, yet now because we are a NEW creation, a spiritual creation, now we recognize the witness of the Holy Spirit within!
This is a new addition for those who believe in the witness of those things that lead them to Christ. Now those witnesses actually have the “stamp of approval” of the very Spirit of Christ abiding within. But, and I’m sorry there always has to be a but, if we accept the testimony and allow it to become a living part of our lives, abiding within us as a living witness, then those who choose to NOT believe in the witness and testimony of God, aren’t just rejecting Him and His Word, which we know to be infallible and without reproach, but they are actually accusing Him of being a liar, a deceiver! John is making the point, rather emphatically that it is not just a matter of rejecting God Himself, but a person who rejects God’s Word and His witness concerning His Son is accusing Him of outright dishonesty.
Those who reject the Son of God, as the Christ, the Savior and Redeemer, sent to pay for OUR debts with His own blood and life are saying that God’s witness, His testimony does not matter! In all of my years of trying to serve the Lord and with all the missteps and stumbles I have taken, some of which were temporarily rebellious, even during those times, I NEVER once thought of calling God Almighty a liar! In fact during one particular bad time when I was outright sinning, I stood on the ramp of a warehouse dock and cried out for God to save me, cause I KNEW I couldn’t do it myself! Yet, because His testimony is ALWAYS true, He reached down and spared me through His grace and instead of discarding me for my rebellion, He actually TAUGHT me through this situation the DEPTH of His unconditional love and I no longer just had an intellectual assessment of what God’s love was, I had a deeply personal and spiritual experience of God’s Agape (love). That experience changed my life forever and when I teach on God’s love it is no longer on an intellectual basis only, but from deep spiritual experience. My life became a witness then to the truth of God’s witness and testimony concerning His Son!
The Apostle Paul demonstrates this foolishness in mankind when he wrote, “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, . . .” – Romans 1:20-22a.
A person who rejects God CHOOSES to have his heart and mind blinded by the god of this world, and thus becomes as confounded and foolish as the rest of the world system to which he becomes an integral part!
But the Beloved Apostle sums up the theme of the witness and testimony of God with verse 11. “And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.” This is the summation of the Gospel, the Good News and of the Christian message as a whole!
All that has been laid out as a foundation before has led up to this very message; “God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.” It is God, our Heavenly Father’s Gift to mankind and it is the Son’s voluntary Gift to us as well by His willingness to pay for our sins and debts by His Sacrifice. All the testimony, all the witnesses that we have before us, has been to lead us to this AWESOME and AMAZING truth; God desires us, His creation, to have eternal life. This has been His eternal plan all along.
This verse doesn’t just sum up the Gospel most appropriately but simply as well and yet there is so much depth to it. Our eternal life is found ONLY in Christ Jesus. Yet, it is a Gift also from God Almighty to those who choose and desire it. “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” – John 14:6. Jesus came to give us eternal life but you have to follow through with that train of thought. Why does He want us to have eternal life?
So many think that Salvation and Redemption is the main reason for being born-again, saved. But that is a narrow train of thought. There is a REASON why we are saved and redeemed. Jesus followed through after stating that He was the way, the truth and the life by stating the purpose for it. The ONLY way to the Father is THROUGH Christ Jesus! We are quick to tell people and to evangelize with the thought of being born-again, just as Jesus instructed the teacher Nicodemus. But we do not always and in fact very seldom teach those we are evangelizing WHY they need to be born-again. It’s NOT just to go to Heaven! Remember, Heaven is ONLY a dwelling place and I am not belittling it when I say that. It is the place of God’s Throne and it will be our abode forever, but that which I just stated is the reason why we NEED to be born-again; to be in the PRESENCE of our Heavenly Father Who GAVE us eternal life through His Son! We were SAVED to have that spiritual unity with our Heavenly Father and to be ONE with the Son!
We are born-again to have a spiritually renewed and reborn life with our Heavenly Father through Christ Jesus as empowered by the Holy Spirit. Jesus told His disciples He was going ahead to prepare a place for all of His disciples. Why? So that we have an abode, a place to be with Him, and the Father. When we are in the presence of Christ Jesus, we WILL be in the presence of the Father for we know and go to the Father THROUGH Christ Jesus! I can’t seem to stress this enough. I am not an Evangelist per se, but I evangelize as the doors open and when I do, I ALWAYS give people a REASON why salvation is so important. Heaven is an awesome reason, but an even GREATER reason, is the Person of our Heavenly Father, God Almighty and the relationship we will have eternally with Him through Jesus Christ!
THIS is God’s testimony: He has given us eternal life and that LIFE is IN Christ Jesus, the Son! Have YOU availed yourself of this FREE gift? I pray and hope so, for your eternal well-being depends on your answer!
God loves you and He will ALWAYS love you and that is based on what He has already done for you and all of His creation. If you do nothing else, think upon that for in that is eternal HOPE!
Next post we will begin with 1 John chapter 5 verse 12.
*Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
[1] Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible. Public Domain.