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1 John Chapter Two
1 John 2:4
A small boy
liked to pull out of the cupboard the paper bags that his mother saved. He
would then spread them around the kitchen floor and use them as a playing
surface for his toy cars. This was permitted on the condition that he collects
the bags and put them away when he was finished playing. One day, his mother
found the bags all over the kitchen and the boy in the living room where his
after was playing the piano. When she told her son to pick up the bags, there
was a short silence. Then his small voice said, “But I want sing ‘Jesus Loves
Me.’”
His father
took the opportunity to point out that it’s no good singing God’s praises while
you’re disobedient. This passage in the First Epistle of John puts the lesson
in much stronger language: “The man who says, ‘I know him,’ but does not do
what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him.”
1 John 2:15
“Loving the created world is not wrong as long as our loving God is not
diminished. To love the world and fail to love God would be like a bride, who,
being given a ring by her bridegroom, loves the ring more than the bridegroom
who gave it. Of course, she should love what the bridegroom gave her, but to
love the ring and despise him who gave it is to reject the very meaning of the
ring as a token of his love. Likewise, men who love creation and not the
creator are rejecting the whole meaning of creation. We ought to appreciate the
creation and love the creator because of it.”―― Augustine
1 John 2:17
In an address to the Wisconsin State
Agriculture Society in 1859, Abraham Lincoln illustrated the profound and
tempering effect that change can have on us. He told of an Eastern monarch who
gave his counselors an assignment to come up with a truth that would apply to
all times and situations. After careful consideration, they returned with this
sentence: “And this too shall pass away.” Said
Centuries before, John made the same point—that the world passes away,
but he who does the will of God abides forever.