“Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him.” 1 John 5:1 NASB. The child born of Him represents primarily Jesus, the Son of God, but could also mean any child of God who is truly born again. If we are born of God, we will also love all others who are born of God too.
Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. I.e. whoever believes that Jesus is the Savior of the world is born of God. He who is not truly born again or born of God does not truly believe that Jesus is the Christ. This is the test to whether we are born again or not or please God or not: whether we truly believe that Jesus is the Savior of the world! Do you believe that Jesus is the Savior of the World? Then you are born of God. Are you born of God? Then you are born again and are overcoming the world, have faith, and are keeping the commandments of God, and have life from God and this wonderful change in your heart. “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.” 1 John 5:2-4 NASB. Are you overcoming the world? Are you keeping His commandments? Do you have Faith? Do you believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Savior of the world? Do you find God’s commandments to be burdensome? Or do you find that keeping them is a delight? If you are not fully born again and not fully born of God, you will be unable to do these positive things and consider the commandments to be a burden, because humanly none of us can fully keep God’s commandments without His help. Are you breaking God’s commandments? (By habit or by desire.) Then you are not yet fully born of God. Or do you confess your sins when you break His commandments? If you do not have that born again experience that Jesus said that all are required to have before they can enter the kingdom of Heaven (John 3:3, 5), then you don’t fully believe yet that Jesus is the Savior of the world, it’s that simple. But don’t give up, there is still hope. The door of mercy is still open for you, open it, receive God’s forgiveness and be cleansed from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9. So confess your sins, contemplate the love of God, and of Jesus His Son, and then you will believe and know that Jesus is the Savior of the world and you will become born again!
Again John the beloved breaks it down for us in such profound and easy to understand terms:
“The one who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself; the one who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given concerning His Son. And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.” 1 John 5:10-12 NASB. With John there is no middle ground, either we are for God or against Him. Either we believe in the Son of God and give this testimony of Him of His love for the world, and are born again, or we are not and find God’s commandments to be a burden, because we cannot keep them or consider them to be a delight, until we have a change of heart by letting the Holy Spirit change us. Either we have the Son and have life or we have no life in us and do not have eternal life. Either we are born again and believe in Jesus or we make God out to be a liar and believe not the Son. There is no middle ground.
It is the Spirit that testifies, because this Spirit is the truth, or ‘the Spirit of Truth’. John 16:13. When someone wants to tell others ‘the truth’ they should testify of Jesus, and give a message in harmony with the Spirit of Truth. If anyone doesn’t testify the truth of Jesus and His Father’s love for the world, or are not telling the truth in love to others, they are not really giving a true testimony of Jesus, but a false one. It matters not how many of ‘the truths’ in the Bible that they believe or are correct on, if they don’t get this one truth, then they are not giving a true testimony of Jesus or the Father and are not born again and have not the Son and have not life. No one can give a true testimony of Jesus all the time, if they have not yielded their heart completely to God. If you are yielding your heart to God at the time you give a testimony of Jesus, then you can give a true testimony of Him, but it is much better to be consistent and yield yourself to God at all times, so that your life can be fully in harmony with Him. Unbelievers often look at the ‘so called’ children of God and mock them and think that there is nothing to this Christian faith. This is because often the “children of God” have not yielded themselves fully to God yet. Let’s pray for the power to consistently be a son or daughter of God, so that He will always be honored by our lives and the way we live, not just when we are trying to ‘tell’ others about God or ‘the truth’. And it is our faith that helps us to gain the victory over the world, and to appropriate God’s many and precious promises to help us in our time of need. To the true believer, what John says here is really true: “We know that no one who is born of God sins; but He who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him.” 1 John 5:18 NASB. If we are fully born of God, as long as we stay connected to the vine, Jesus, the evil one cannot make us go against God; God’s power is too great to allow the soul who trusts in Him to be snatched out of His hand. Jesus said, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish; and no one shall snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.” John 10:27-29 NASB.
“Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? This is the One who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ; not with the water only, but with the water and with the blood. It is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.” 1 John 5:5-6 NASB.
So let us believe the words of John and believe in Jesus, that we may be born again, born of God, and be an overcomer, and then we can have life from God and from above, and give a true testimony of Jesus! God’s promises are true, not some speaker or writer’s rambling or quailing over what the word of God says. Let God’s word tell you the truth, and do not let anyone confuse you. Study it much, and with much prayer, and the Holy Spirit will explain it to you. If you obey everything the Holy Spirit has revealed to you and made plain from the Bible, more of this truth will be revealed to you. God’s word, the Bible, says what it means and means what it says. It’s easy to understand, if you will just take it as it reads and in context (don’t just pick out part of a text, but read it in a larger section first), although there may be some parables and prophecies that you need to study more in depth to know what they mean. But the essentials of salvation are easy for all to understand who want to believe, and want the promised blessing of a new life with God and eternal happiness, peace, love and joy!
May the grace of God be with you!
By John Foll
#Born #God #Jesus #Savior #Messiah #Confess #Believe #Forgiveness #Cleansed #Spirit #Truth #Overcomer #New #Life #Testimony #Prayer #Peace #Love #Joy #Essential
Originally posted 2017-01-28 19:39:00.
“If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish.'” Luke 14:26-30 NASB. Are you able to finish the course that is set before you? Hebrews 12:1. You will be able to finish the course that is set before you, if you count the true cost, and the true value of the surpassing riches that God wants to provide you. “And raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus, in order that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” Ephesians 2:6-7 NASB.
Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down His life for His friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you.” John 15:13-14 NASB. Jesus is the good shepherd who laid down his life for His friends!Jesus said, “Why do you call Me, 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I say?” Luke 6:46 NASB. We are Jesus’ friends if we do what He says. Doing everything that He said is doing everything that He has commanded us.
How to know if you are born again and belong to God? Do you love to tell of Jesus and His Father’s love? Or do you love to tell the faults of others? Do you love your neighbor as yourself? Does doing the right thing, being a good witness, and sharing your faith seem like a duty or a pleasure? Do you have a nagging guilt that you should do something for God and others? Or do you have a burning desire to serve God and help others? Are you so happy that you are free? Or are you bound in slavery and guilt?
Certificate of Achievement: This acknowledges that [blank] is a servant of God because he/she loves Jesus. [Your Name Goes Here?] Signed by the Holy Spirit. Today’s Date? Please look at this certificate and ponder the importance of what it is trying to teach, it is really quite simple, yet powerful. This pictorially shows us how we can please God, and know if we are on the right track or not. It is not just trying to be cute, but to help all to see the truth.
Give your heart to God every day! Why not? He loves you! If you promise to love and serve Him, by His power, and ask Him to bless you in witnessing to others of His love, He will be happy with you! Even though we are cautioned by Jesus not to vow, because we cannot turn one hair of our head white or black, He is talking about any promises that we make in our own strength. The key here is that we cannot keep an oath that we made ‘by our head,’ or by ourselves. But we can vow by the mighty power of God!
“Therefore they said to Him, ‘What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?’ Jesus answered and said to them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.’” John 6:28-29 NASB. What shall we do that we may do the works of God? Believe in the one God sent, Jesus. Yes, we repeated it. When you want to really understand a text, it is often helpful to read it again, because the Bible explains itself. Both the question and the answer are both contained in this text. This is another way of stating righteousness by faith!
The inspiring testimony of Charles Fitch - how he came to receive the Holy Spirit and have a closer walk with God. He learned how God could make him more like Jesus:
It is now several years, since, after a season of spiritual gloom and sadness, I came fully to the conclusion, that there was something in the religion of Jesus Christ, to which I had been a stranger. I had seen myself to be a sinner before God, richly deserving His everlasting indignation. I had seen that God would be holy, just and good, and worthy of universal and eternal adoration, while punishing me with everlasting destruction from His presence and from the glory of His power. I had also seen in Christ a Saviour, who, after atoning for all mankind on the cross, was able, on the merits of that atonement, to save to the uttermost all that come to God by Him; and on that Saviour I had cast myself as my only hope, and trusted in Him, and Him only, as my Deliverer from the wrath of God.
Peter said, “And we are witnesses of these things; and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him.” Acts 5:32 NASB. So obedience to God is the condition for receiving the Holy Spirit! There is a true Holy Spirit, and there is a counterfeit. How do you know which Holy Spirit is the real Holy Spirit? If you are obeying God in what He has revealed in the Bible, or if you want to obey Him, He will give you the help you need and the continued desire to obey Him in everything He has said.
The force of this is found in the fact that the Christian life, which is the result of faith, is progressive. The Christian life is a continual growth. Peter says: "Beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness. But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." 2 Peter 3:17, 18. The only way to keep from falling from that which we have, is to grow. David says of the righteous man that "he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water." Ps. 1:3. This means continual growth.
