In 1 John 2:10, “Whoever loves his brother lives in the light,” which fits in perfectly with verse 5, that “God’s love is truly being made complete in us” – because the proof of his love growing in us is the startling ability we now have to love each other, no matter how imperfect or different from each other we are.

And it really is startling too, because with God’s love, verse 10, “there is no cause for stumbling in it.” The Greek for “cause for stumbling” is skandelon, meaning an object in the path that could cause a stumble or trip, like a rock, or a slip on ice. Put in the context of love for a fellow human, and it takes on a very special meaning, that there’s nothing in us that would cause a brother to trip, or slip, and fall. 

In other words, God’s love removes all hindrances and pitfalls in our relationships with others. There’s nothing in us that would even think of causing another person to trip and fall. That’s the light of God’s love that we walk in, where we’re so sure footed in our love for others that we get really good at avoiding situations that could cause hurt. And love does that, it sharpens our senses to possible pitfalls and awkward situations.   

And in this world that’s an amazing gift to have, because as John goes on to say in verse 11, “whoever hates his brother is stumbling around in the darkness, with no clue where he’s going because the darkness has blinded him.” All around us, then, are people we’re in contact with who stumble and fall very easily, where situations constantly arise that make them feel angry, offended, anxious, frustrated, jealous, bitter and hateful, causing many a hurt relationship, and lasting damage to their own state of mind too, especially when hounded by grievances that never heal. 

There are two opposite states of mind, then, and John makes it clear in these two verses that when it comes to relationships with our fellow humans we’re either walking in the light or in the darkness. It’s either love or hate. And with God’s love there’s no room for hate, because it not only causes others to stumble, it messes up our own minds too.

And “the truth of this” is now being made plain for all to see, because, verse 8, when God’s love is in us, it can be seen that “the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.” And that’s the gift for others that we carry with us wherever we go. Which is kept alive in our minds by “Remembering who we are”….(next blog)

The first thing God created was light, because in his eyes “light was good,” Genesis 1:3-4. But then he “separated the light from the darkness,” creating an opposite to light, and a clear distinction between the two, which he must’ve had reason for. 

John gives the reason in 1 John 1:5 when describing God, that “God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all.” So in God himself there is a clear separation between light and darkness as well – which John sees special significance in, because he sees that separation between light and darkness in God describing us too – as either “walking in the darkness” or “walking in the light,” verses 6-7. So there’s a clear distinction made between light and darkness in us too.

And because light and darkness are such total opposites by God’s design, it’s obvious, then, if we’re walking in the light or in the darkness. Which John touched on back in John 3:19, when he wrote that “Light has come into the world” – referring to Jesus (1:1-9) – “but men loved darkness instead of light.” So when Jesus came into our world it was like another Genesis creation, where light and darkness were separated again, but this time describing the two opposites in us humans, those who “hate the light” (20) and those who “come into the light” (21).

The difference between the two can “be plainly seen” too, verse 21, in “whoever lives by the truth,” because living by the truth is so noticeably and extraordinarily different that it can only be of God’s making (21). And that’s John’s point in 1 John 1:6 too, that “living by the truth” we’re “in fellowship with God,” and being in fellowship with God means we’re “walking in the light as he is in the light” (7). We’re “lit up” like him. So, obviously, it can “be plainly seen.”  

But how do we know we’re walking in the same light as God? It’s when we’re “walking as Jesus walked,” 1 John 2:6, because, verse 5, “if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him.” God’s love “lights up” in us. So anyone who recognizes that Jesus is the Light sent by God to open up the way to “eternal life” (1:2) and sets out to walk in that light by walking as Jesus walked, obeying his word, will come to love as God loves. 

And there’s our proof we’re walking in the light – and especially in where that love is shining at its brightest in us too: it’s in “Whoever loves his brother”….(next blog)

“Now that we’re children of God,” 1 John 3:2, we’re in the process of being “purified from every sin” 1 John 1:7. And being purified is our great hope, so that “when he appears we shall be like him,” 1 John 3:2. 

So when we finally get to “see him as he is” (2), and we meet Jesus face to face, there’s no fear, no guilt, and no thinking we’re not good enough. Instead, being purified means we’ll be just “like him,” so we’ll be totally comfortable in his presence as family and friends forever. 

It’s not surprising, then, that “Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself,” 1 John 3:3. And in so doing start experiencing now what it’s like being in “fellowship with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ,” 1 John 1:3, and “with one another” (7), because, according to John in verse 4,  that’s what “makes our joy complete.” Purification, then, is the source of fellowship, and fellowship is the source of joy. Experience that now and we’re getting a head start on experiencing eternity. No wonder purification is our great hope.

So what is purification? John explains in 1 John 2:1, “My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin.” Purification means we stop sinning all together. That’s John’s aim. But how is it possible, when “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us” (1:8)? We’ll never be “without sin” in some form or other in this life now, so how on earth can we be purified from sin – while still sinning? 

John’s answer? 1 John 2:1 – “if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defence – Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins.” So “If we confess our sins he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1:9). In Greek, “purify” here mean cleanse, and “unrighteousness” means wrong doing. On forgiving us, then, Jesus also wipes our slate clean. 

This is how, then, “we walk in the light as God is in the light,” 1 John 1:7. God being “in the light” means he can see everything clearly, so he never takes a misstep. And that’s the light John is saying we can be in too, even as sinners, the aim being that there’s “nothing in us to make us stumble” or take a misstep either (2:10). And when we stumble we have forgiveness, but it’s right back to walking we go, because purifying is about “Walking in the light”….(next blog)

Job and Jesus shared one thing in common, that the devil tried to expose them as frauds. Was Jesus really the “Son of God”? And was Job really as “blameless and upright” as God said he was? 

To expose them as frauds the devil had to get them to sin. In Job’s case the sin would be getting Job to “charge God with wrongdoing” (Job 1:22). In Jesus’ case the sin would be getting him to obey the devil (Matthew 4:3-10). And the devil was sure he could get them to sin too, because he’d easily got Adam and Eve to sin and prove they were frauds unworthy of ruling the world as God intended, because under the devil’s testing they couldn’t even rule their own selfish appetites. 

So Adam and Eve failed where Job and Jesus didn’t. What was it in Job and Jesus, then, that the devil had no power over? And where did Adam and Eve go wrong?

The devil’s testing, or tempting, revealed the answer: under severe testing Jesus obeyed God and trusted him, and so did Job, and that’s what broke the devil’s power over them. 

And that’s crucial for us to know because one day, 1 John 1:17, “The world and its desires pass away, but the person who does the will of God lives forever.” So God intended a period of time for the devil to use “the world and its desires” to test our obedience and trust, because the reward for obeying and trusting God is eternal life. 

Which is why God allows the devil to be very good at what he does, because it’s eternal life that awaits those who overcome him. And God set this in motion back in Genesis 3:15, when he said the devil and humans would be at war. But it’s through that process that we learn what Job and Jesus learnt, that when we obey and trust God the devil has no power over us.

God also assured us in Genesis 3:15 that he won’t let the devil destroy us. As with Job, God told the devil he can do anything to Job but take his life (Job 2:6). And the same with us, because Jesus died to “destroy him who holds the power of death, the devil,” Hebrews 2:14, so that under the devil’s testing we can live free of fear, knowing God will never let the devil’s testing be more than we can bear (1 Corinthians 10:13). Meaning that we can concentrate on what life as children of God is for now. Which, according to John, is becoming “Purified from every sin”….(next blog)

In 1 John 3:8, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.” Not destroy the devil; just his “work.” So the devil lives on, but his work, of controlling us through our sinful nature (Romans 7:5), has been broken. It means, then, that we can “overcome the evil one.”

Which is staggering in itself, that we can now “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). A good example of which was Jesus himself, who was “led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.” With God’s full approval, then, the devil was let loose on Jesus, with Jesus in a highly fragile state physically too. Echoes of Satan being let loose on Job come to mind, when Job was in a highly fragile state too (Job 2:7). 

The devil also used the same tactic on Jesus as he did on Job. In Job’s case the devil challenged God’s definition of Job as “blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil,” Job 1:8. “Is that so?” the devil says to God – “Then let me loose on Job so I can destroy everything he holds dear and I bet he’ll curse you to your face” (1:11, 2:5). 

Could anything have been more unfair, more unjust, and more crushing of one’s confidence and trust in God than that? Job was struck to the heart: “What I dreaded most has happened to me. I have no peace, quietness or rest, only turmoil” (3:25-26). It looked like the end of him. 

The devil then tried the same tactic on Jesus, challenging God’s definition of Jesus as “my Son, whom I love” (Matthew 3:17). “So prove you’re the Son of God then,” the devil says to Jesus in Matthew 4:3. And there’ll be no peace for Jesus either, unless he can turn stones into bread, throw himself off the temple for angels to catch him, and acknowledge the devil’s superiority (5-6, 8-9). 

How tempting it must have been for Jesus to prove he was the Son of God in a show of power, being protected by angels, and putting this vicious, sneering little pipsqueak and his narcissistic God complex in his place. 

But that’s not how Jesus overcame the evil one. Nor Job either. They overcame the devil, yes, and in Job’s case the devil only lasted two chapters and that’s the last we hear of him. And in Jesus’ case, “the devil left him” after only three attempts to destroy him (Matthew 4:11). From their examples, then, “What is it the devil has no power over?”….(next blog)

God certainly has a way of stirring our imagination and throwing our thoughts for a loop, especially when faced with Satan being the devil from the start, and therefore it was God who created such evil.

But evil had to come from somewhere, and Scripture quickly indicates the source of it, because who was it who created a tree whose fruit would kill if eaten? It was God. And who created the crafty serpent that got Adam and Eve to eat off that ‘death’ tree too? That was God too. 

And who allowed the crafty serpent, later identified as the “devil and Satan” (Revelation 12:9), to bring the world to a state so evil in Genesis 6:5 that God was all for wiping humans off the map (7)? Again, it was God. You’d think, then, that God would have ended the evil, but he didn’t. So evil continued to destroy people’s lives all through the Old Testament, and God never put an end to it. Why on earth not? 

Because he made a prediction in Genesis 3:15, that “I’m making you (the devil) and the woman (humanity) into enemies, and it will remain so with your offspring too” – the devil having offspring too (John 8:44). 

So God was announcing an ongoing war between humanity and the devil. And he meant it to be this way, because in the end humanity would prevail: the devil would “strike the heel” of humanity (Genesis 3:15), representing a crippling wound, but humanity would “strike a deadly blow to the head” of the devil. Evil exists, then, for humans to fight against and win. 

But for what purpose? It’s to make us “strong in the Lord and in his mighty power,” Ephesians 6:10, which comes from “wrestling against the unseen powers controlling this dark world and the spiritual forces of evil,” verse 12, “so that when evil strikes,” verse 13, “you’ll still be standing strong, no matter what the devil throws at you.” 

This is how God is “bringing many sons to glory,” including his own Son (Hebrews 2:10, 5:7-10). We learn, just as Jesus did, that through obedience to God’s word and trust in his power we can rule over evil, to prepare us perfectly for being “crowned with glory and honour and ruling with Jesus over the whole world” in the future (Hebrew 2:6-8). In the meanwhile, then, we can get used to “Overcoming the evil one” again and again….(next blog)

How could the thought even be entertained that the devil was God’s idea? But Colossians 1:16 states that, “All things were created by him, everything in the heavenly realm and here on earth, both the things we can see and what we can’t see, like the thrones, kingdoms, rulers and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him.” 

But did God make the devil a good angel to begin with, who then became evil? Not according to Jesus who said “the devil,” John 8:44, “was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him.” The devil didn’t start life as a good angel, he started off as “a liar and the father of lies.” That’s “his native language,” Jesus said (same verse), meaning the devil’s always been this way. And the same thing is said in 1 John 3:8, that “the devil has been sinning from the beginning.” Not a good angel who then sinned. Sinning is what the devil has always done. 

And according to Genesis 3:1, he was created that way by God, as a “serpent who was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made.” And who, or what, was this “serpent” God made? Revelation 20:2 says it was “the devil and Satan.” From the very beginning, then, God made the devil to be the devil.

God made him an angel, yes, and a powerful angel too, able to make “war in heaven,” Revelation 12:7, where “Michael and his angels fought against the dragon and the dragon and his angels fought back. But the dragon and his angels were not strong enough (8), and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down – that ancient serpent called the devil or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him” (9). They were also “the rulers, authorities and powers of this dark world” too, the “spiritual forces of evil,” Ephesians 6:12, who at this very moment are “at work in those who are disobedient” (2:2), “blinding the minds of unbelievers,” 2 Corinthians 4:4. 

And all this was somehow God’s idea? That in among the millions of angels he created, a whole flock of them would be led by a devil with such murderous intent they’d try to kill off the other angels, kill off the humans God created, and manage to get Jesus killed too. Which begs the question: “Why did God create such evil?”….(next blog) 

What was the point of Jesus dying to break the stranglehold of the devil over our world when it’s pretty obvious the devil is alive and well and still having huge influence on people? And if, as John 16:11 states, the devil “now stands condemned,” why hasn’t God stopped him having any further influence?

It’s because God created the devil for our benefit, which continued after Jesus defeated the devil too – as in 1 Corinthians 5:5, for example, when Paul told the Corinthians to “hand over the man charged with sexual immorality to Satan.” So Satan served a vital purpose in a man’s life – for a vital benefit too, “so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord.”  

And the same for Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:7, who “was given a thorn in my flesh a messenger of Satan, to torment me.” So Satan served a vital purpose in the life of an apostle, but again for a vital benefit, “so that Christ’s power may rest on me” (9), enabling him to “delight in weaknesses, for when I’m weak then I’m strong” (10). 

And the same for Jesus in Matthew 4:1 when he was “led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.” So Satan even served a vital purpose in Jesus’ life, also for a vital benefit, because “the devil left him” (11), proving that “serving God only” (10) puts the devil to flight. 

And it was only after “Satan entered Judas” in John 13:27, that Judas became “seized with remorse” for the first time in his life, on realizing he’d “betrayed innocent blood” (Matthew 27:3-4), because up ’til then Jesus had meant little to him.

But wasn’t it also risky creating the devil? And especially creating him “crafty” in Genesis 3:1, because the serpent could make a blatant lie believable and irresistible. He captivated Adam and Eve with the idea that “you will be like God” (5), with the power to decide good and evil for themselves. 

And it worked so easily that one cannot help wondering why God would create such an effective deceiver, who’s still “prowling around like a roaring lion looking for people to devour,” 1 Peter 5:8, while cleverly  “masquerading as an angel of light,” 2 Corinthian 11:14. But “Was the devil really God’s idea?”….(next blog)

In John 17:12, Jesus talks of guarding his disciples and “not one of them being lost – except, that is, the one who was doomed to destruction, to fulfill what Scripture had predicted.”

It sounds like Judas had no choice: Scripture said it – and he was the man doomed to fulfill it. But if it truly was Judas all along, what was the point of Jesus spending all that time with him, giving him the same power to heal and cast out demons as the other eleven disciples, trusting him to manage their money, and dropping several hints along the way that one of his disciples would betray him, giving Judas both fair warning and opportunity not to betray him? What could be more fair than that? 

The only thing Jesus didn’t do was name who would betray him, but even that was done out of love, to give Judas three years of listening to Jesus and seeing his miracles to make it blatantly obvious that Jesus was “the Holy One of God,” John 6:69, with “the words of eternal life” (68).

And never did Jesus treat Judas any differently to the other disciples, to the point that right up to the moment when Jesus said that one of his disciples was about to betray him, none of the disciples knew who it was. Jesus never stopped treating Judas as a much loved friend too. When identifying who his betrayer was by dipping a piece of bread into a dish and handing the bread to Judas, that too in the custom of the day was extending the hand of friendship. And Jesus’ last words to Judas in Matthew 26:50 were, “Friend, do what you came to do.” 

So right up to the last minute Jesus was being extremely merciful and loving to Judas. What excuse did Judas have, then, for seeking out the religious leaders and asking, “What will you pay me for giving Jesus to you?” (Matthew 26:15). And even if the Father hadn’t opened Judas’ mind to who Jesus was (John 6:65), what excuse did Judas have – as a normal, regular human with a conscience – for kissing Jesus like a friend but stabbing him in the back at the same time as he handed Jesus over to the Roman authorities? 

So was God being fair to Judas? Yes, because Judas was given every opportunity to repent, and in the end he did repent, when “seized with remorse,” Matthew 27:3, he cried out, “I have sinned for I have betrayed innocent blood” (4). But was it fair of God to let Satan get at Judas (Luke 22:3)? Wasn’t that risking Judas being lost forever? Or “Does the devil serve a vital purpose?”….(next blog)

It seems odd that Jesus would choose a treacherous man for a disciple. And “right from the beginning” Jesus knew that Judas would be the death of him, John 6:64. He also knew that under Judas’ respectable veneer was “a devil” (70), deceitful to the core, a sneaky thief who not only stole out of the disciples’ working funds (12:6), he would trade Jesus’ life in for money too (Matthew 26:14-16). 

And on top of that Judas was a virtue signalling hypocrite, who objected to money being spent on expensive perfume because it would be better spent “on care for the poor” (John 12:5-6). But what about the extra money he was secretly pocketing – did it go to the poor?  

But amazingly, Jesus made Judas the “keeper of the money bag” (6), the Treasurer of the group. And for three years Jesus walked, talked and spent hours with Judas. In Luke 9:1, he even gave Judas “the power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases” – and to “preach the kingdom of God” too (2). 

And when the time came for Judas to betray Jesus in John 13:18, it was Psalm 41:9 that Jesus quoted from, which says, “Even my close friend, whom I trusted, he who shared my bread has lifted up his heel against me.” It “troubled Jesus greatly” in verse 21 then, that Judas would turn on him. Because even though Scripture had to be fulfilled, Jesus felt the loss of his close friend Judas deeply. 

Which tells us that Jesus chose Judas because he loved him, even knowing what Judas was like, and Scripture predicting what he would do. But that didn’t stop Jesus loving him, in the hope that Judas would respond to his love and his heart would soften. And only when it was obvious that Judas would finally go ahead and turn Jesus in, did Jesus accept he’d lost him, and that’s when “Satan entered into Judas” (27). 

Up to the point that Satan entered him, Judas was still free to choose. Why on earth, then, did he choose to betray Jesus who obviously loved him? As Jesus said in Matthew 26:24, “Better for Judas if he’d never been born,” because without Jesus’ love getting through to him, Judas’ life ended up a shambles. 

What a lesson, therefore, in our need for the Father to open our minds to Jesus’ love – that could love a man like Judas. In not opening his mind, then, “Was God being fair to Judas?”….(next blog)