In 1 John 4:16, John boils life down to a simple formula, that “Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him” – and this, verse 17, is what God is “making complete (or fully developing) in us.”

God’s purpose in creating us humans and giving us life, therefore, is that we come to “live in love” as entirely and eternally as he does. That’s an amazing goal, so how on earth does he go about making it happen?

According to John, God does it in three ways, the first of which is telling us – as John does in verse 16 – that “God is love.” The starting point to living in love, therefore, is catching on to what God tells us about himself, that from top to bottom and all through his being, he is love.

Which may seem hard to believe with all the horrible things happening to us humans in this world, but it would give purpose to all that’s going on if we could see where it’s all leading – that it’s all been designed by a God whose life is love to help us see that life is love too. Which makes sense, because if we’re going to be living in his world forever where life is love, then life for us in this world must be preparation for it.  

Like, for instance, when we’re born, because even in our messy world millions of babies enter a world of love, in the loving arms of our exhausted mother, in the sparkling eyes of our relieved Dad, and the steady stream of aunts, uncles and other assorted relatives and friends all saying we’re the most beautiful baby who’s ever existed. And it all comes so naturally, so that, even if no one thought it at the time, this incredible little living being is already being given a taste of what God has intended for him entirely and eternally.

And hopefully, “life is love” continues for that child too. Which God also made easy, because he built into parents a deep and lasting love for their children. Which for the parents is marvellous preparation for the life God intends for them too, because as John writes in verse 7, “Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.” 

The love we experience so naturally, therefore, is God’s way of telling us he’s already “birthed” his very own self in us, so that we’re already on the way to living the life of love he lives, and intends for us forever. But how, then, does God make us aware of his love? According to John, it’s in “How God shows his love”….(next blog)

The power of sacrifice comes in two forms: the first, that sacrifice makes life possible, and the second, that sacrifice makes love real. 

The arrival of a new baby soon proves the first point, because along with the joy of a newborn baby comes the realization that this little creature is utterly helpless. Without the sacrifice of a parent’s time and attention – and sleep – a baby won’t survive. And yet we still have babies, knowing the sacrifices needed to keep our children alive until they’re capable of looking after themselves.

That’s a long but totally acceptable sacrifice to most parents, though, because it’s through sacrifice that love is made real. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:58 that our “labour is not in vain,” and that fits the sacrifices parents willingly make year after year for their growing children, because that’s how children become aware that they’re loved. 

It’s the single parent who works three jobs so a son or daughter can get a decent education, or the Dad who bails his child out of jail for a lapse in his child’s judgment, that builds that vital picture in a child’s mind that he or she is loved.

But how does God make us aware that we’re loved? John answers that in 1 John 4:9, “This is how God showed his love among us: he sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.” And how do we “live through him”? By God in his love “sending his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (10).

So it’s in sacrifice that God not only makes life possible, but makes love real too. And it’s in Jesus that he builds that picture in our minds, because Jesus is just like a parent who sacrifices his life and personal dreams and ambitions for his child. Jesus gave up his life as God to become human like us so he could die to save us from death. And now he lives to intercede for us, just as parents live for their kids.

So, just as “We love because God first loved us” (4:19), our children become loving humans because we loved them. That’s the power God  gave to sacrifice, not only in his Son’s sacrifice for all of us, but also in a parent’s sacrifice for a child. Because in sacrifice not only is life made possible, love is made real too. But why does love need to be made real? Because “Life is love”….(next blog)

In 1 John 2:17, John makes an amazing statement, that “anyone who does the will of God lives forever.”

John also wrote in verse 5, that “if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him.” So that’s two things on offer for tuning into God’s will and God’s word: life for ever, and a life of love. Or put together, “a permanent world of love.” 

If we’re serious about what God’s saying, then, a new world opens up to us, that’s not like this world. In this world, by comparison, life is only temporary. No matter how brilliant our medicines are, or how well we look after ourselves, our lives don’t last forever. And no matter how hard we try to make the world a better and more loving place, the wreckage caused by evil and selfish desires carries on unabated.

Maybe John had a point, then, when he wrote in verse 15, “Don’t fall in love with that (temporary, self-focused) world, because setting your heart on it means you’ll know nothing of the love of your heavenly Father.” To John, to think that this world is the only world in operation on this planet was tragic, because for seventy years or so he’d based his life “on the love God has for us” (4:16). He knew from long experience, therefore, “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us” (3:1). 

John had lived in that world too, which he described as being like a child again, only this time being God’s very own child, because “that is what we are!” (3:1). The process by which “God’s love is truly being made complete in us” (2:5) begins, therefore, with the realization that in God’s eyes we are just like a child in a human father’s eyes.  

God created the perfect picture of his love for us in the love of a human father looking down at his newborn baby with nothing but love and delight. The baby has no naturally loveable qualities too. It’s a squished up, purple, puffy-eyed creature making odd faces as if battling some intense internal struggle, and it has no control over its bodily functions. But to a father that’s his child, and his child has just entered a permanent world of love.

As babies, though, we were totally unaware of how loved we were. And probably so as God’s children too. So how does God make us aware of his love? As with humans, it’s in “The power of sacrifice”….(next blog)

In 1 John 1 and 2 it’s black and white: we’re either walking in the light or walking in darkness, living by the truth or living a lie, and either living in the light or stumbling around blindly in the darkness. And again in 1 John 2:15, “If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” It’s either love the world or love the Father. And in verse 17, “The world and its desires pass away, but (in direct contrast again) the man who does the will of God lives forever.”

Two completely different and opposite worlds, one of which comes to a permanent end, while the other one continues on forever. So how do we detect which world is which, and which world is better?  

John’s simple answer is: “Look at the desires each world creates.” In John’s terms the evil one’s world creates “lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride” (16) – exactly the same three lusts, or desires, that the evil creature created in Adam and Eve. God said if they ate the fruit it would kill them, but the evil one focused their attention instead on the fruit being good to eat, how good it looked, and how clever and wise it would make them. And all thoughts of God were swept away in the flood of their newly awakened, but entirely selfish, desires. 

With that success so easily pulled off, it’s not surprising to see the evil one trying the same three things on Jesus. First, he tries to get the starving Jesus to turn rocks into freshly baked bread. “That should get him,” the devil must’ve thought, “the old lust of the flesh trick.” Jesus fended that one off, however, so the evil one takes Jesus to a high spot and offers him everything his eyes can take in – the old well-worn and highly successful “lust of the eyes” trick. But – saving the best ‘til last, Luke 4:9 – the evil one appeals to Jesus’ pride. If Jesus truly was the Son of God, he could easily prove it by throwing himself off the highest point of the temple mount and angels would catch him. 

How tempting that must’ve been for Jesus to do too, because it was true, angels would catch him (10-11), and that would put the devil in his place all right. But Jesus resisted, because in satisfying all three of what the devil was tempting him to do, what would Jesus have gained? Nothing, because as John wrote: “That world and its desires pass away” (17). It’s all temporary. But what makes the other opposite world any better? According to John, it’s not temporary, nor is it self-focused. It’s about “A permanent world of love”….(next blog)

John makes this statement – about overcoming the evil one – to “young men,” 1 John 2:14. Which is truly amazing, because John is saying it’s possible for even young people to have power over the devil’s world, and at the most vulnerable time of their lives too, when their emotions are all over the place, and they don’t have the benefit of experience yet either. 

It’s also amazing, because the devil’s world of money and greed feeds off young people. The young are its best clients, because they’re so easily sucked in by the three ‘baddies’: “lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” (16). Those three are the bad part of the world, in which the evil one takes what are normal and natural, God-given desires in us, and twists them instead into all-consuming selfish addictions to whatever my body wants, what my eyes like to look at, and what makes me look great. And the world feeds on that, broadcasting to the young on every frequency available, that to “eat, drink and be merry” – feeding what self wants – is the best and only goal worth chasing in this life now.

So how on earth do young people break free of that, or never fall for it in the first place?

Did it have anything to do with the “fathers” John was also writing to in verse 13? The “fathers” were the first in line to hear what John was teaching, and the first to learn from John the importance of obeying what Jesus taught (2:3). These older folks, then, had “known Jesus from the beginning” (2:13, 14), which had given them a lifetime of experience and stories they could tell of the power we humans have over the devil’s world that the teachings of Jesus provide. 

Was it then in “fellowship” with these veterans of Christianity, who’d been through the mill, been hit from all angles by the devil and his tricks, and come through them all into a kind of peace and calm about life where very little rattles them, that was now inspiring these younger folks, or younger Christians, to “overcome the evil one” too (2:14)? 

John seems to think so, because it’s fellowship with God and each other that he’s focusing on, and the gifts the Holy Spirit has given to each group to help the others. With one other great gift the older folk have to offer as they age, the realization that “The world and its desires pass away”….(next blog)

The evidence of the Holy Spirit being “poured out on all people” in Acts 2:17, would be “young men seeing visions” and old men “dreaming dreams,” both of which would be attached in some way to “the last days,” when the age of the Kingdom of God would begin.

At that time the Holy Spirit would fill the old and the young with dreams and visions of that Kingdom, inspiring in their lives the evidence that it was already happening. In the old folk it would create a lifetime of following Jesus’ teachings, which form the foundation of the Kingdom of God and how the whole world will be living for eternity. It’s why the Holy Spirit inspired them to live that way, so that clear evidence of what the Kingdom of God is based on, and the effect it has on people, can be seen in their lives. And isn’t that what we older folk dream of and live for too? 

But what about the young? They can’t depend on a lifetime of living by Jesus’ teachings as evidence of the Kingdom of God already in operation on the planet. But what the Holy Spirit does in them instead is give them a vision of the world as it could be, and they want to gear their lives to that.

Which is a great gift the Holy Spirit has given us as a human race, because isn’t it the young we all depend on so strongly to take the fight to evil? In wartime, for instance, it’s always the young who are on the front lines. They’re the ones with the energy – and the heart to put their lives on the line. It is extraordinary how young people – with everything to live for in life – will give themselves to serving the needs of others, and even giving up life itself.

And what makes it even more extraordinary is that they may not attend any church, or profess any religious bent, or even mention God, but they have a good moral compass, they’re capable, confident, wise, good living people who love to serve, work hard, and they are honest and respectful in all their dealings – and aren’t they grand people to be around too?

Their glory (as John puts it in 1 John 2:14) is their strength, which either consciously or unconsciously has come from “the word of God living in them,” where the Holy Spirit is inspiring them for all our sakes to make our world liveable, and prove to us all that, no matter what age we are or what stage of our Christianity we’re at, we really do have “Power over the devil’s world”….(next blog) 

According to John in 1 John 2:14, it’s possible for “young men” to “overcome the evil one.” He tells them, and us, how it’s possible too: it’s because “the word of God is living in you” (same verse).

But how did that happen in them, and not in Adam and Eve and the Israelites? Simply put: it was “the effect of the Holy Spirit.” When Jesus ascended to his Father to ask him to send the Holy Spirit, the Spirit would open up a completely different relationship with God, where we humans, even as “young men,” could “obey Jesus’ teaching” out of love for him, John 14:21 – just as Jesus obeyed his Father out of love for him (31). 

But there was more too, because when the Holy Spirit was then sent as Jesus promised in Acts 2, Peter “stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice,” verse 14, “and addressed the crowd” with “what was spoken by the prophet Joel” (back in Joel 2:28-32).

“In the last days,” Peter begins in Acts 2:17, quoting Joel, “God says I will pour out my Spirit on all people.” To a Jew hearing “the last days” it meant the new age of the Kingdom of God, the one great dream they’d all had for centuries when God would “restore the kingdom to Israel” (1:6), and then through Israel bless the whole world as God had promised to Abraham back in Genesis 12:3 (and Isaiah 49:6).

Was Peter saying, then, that this time had finally come? Well, they’d know if it had, because, as Peter continues in Acts 2:17, “Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.”  

Visions and dreams about what, though? About the Kingdom of God being set up on this planet, now that the time had come for it to happen. And who is it going to show up in the most? According to God in the book of Joel, it’s going to be the “young men” and the “old men.” 

Which John tells us later is exactly what he’d seen happen. The old men, or the “fathers” as he calls them in 1 John 2:13, “have known him who is from the beginning.” They’ve been rooted solidly in the teachings of Jesus for years, because their “dream” (Acts 2:17) is to see the whole world at last living by those teachings, as promised. But what about the effect on the young? According to Joel, ““Your young men will see visions”….(next blog)

In 1 John 2:14, John has one more thing to say to the “young men” – he’s writing to them “because you have overcome the evil one.” So when John writes earlier in the verse that these young men are “strong,” he means this kind of strong, that they’ve stood their ground against the wiles and power of the devil.

And they are “young men” too – young in age or young in their growth as Christians – either way or both, they haven’t caved in to evil. Which is amazing, because they’ve managed to do what Adam and Eve didn’t do, and what the Israelites in the Old Testament never did either, so something since must have changed to enable people – still in the developing stage of their humanity and their Christianity – to fight off the devil. 

Well, we know now what that “something” was: it was the most gigantic moment in our human history, when “the Son of God appeared” on this planet in human form and “destroyed the devil’s work,” 1 John 3:8. He did what Adam and Eve and the Israelites didn’t and couldn’t do: he resisted the evil one in a face to face battle in Matthew 4 and sent him packing. How? By using the one weapon God gave us humans from the beginning: HIM. 

He’s always been there for us, with his wisdom and his strength. He was there in person for Adam and Eve, and if only they’d listened to him and let him guide them. And the same with the Israelites. He was always there for them too, again with his wisdom and guidance on hand at all times, but they wouldn’t listen to him either.

But Jesus did. He lived on “every word that comes from the mouth of God,” Matthew 4:4. That was his weapon that overcame the evil one. And the same for those “young men” John was writing to. The means by which they were able to overcome the evil one was “the word of God living in them” too, 1 John 2:14.

But how did that happen? Why were they able to do what Jesus did, and not do what Adam and Eve and the Israelites did? Well, we know that too now, that it was the second most gigantic moment in human history, when Jesus ascended to his Father after being victorious over the evil one and asked his Father to “send the Holy Spirit to live with us and in us,” John 14:16-17. And “The effect of the Holy Spirit” was amazing….(next blog)

In 1 John 2:14, John writes to “young men because the word of God lives in you.” Whether he means “young” in age or young in their Christian journey (or both) – the same point would apply, that they’d caught on to the essential ingredient in the growth and development of their fellowship with God. 

It was the same essential ingredient that created the fellowship of Jesus with his Father, as Jesus himself explained in John 14:10, that “The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father living in me who is doing his work.” So it was the word of the Father living in Jesus that created their fellowship together, and gave Jesus the ability to speak and act as strongly and effectively as he did.

Well, John is now writing to young men, or young Christians, who are displaying the same strength in their words and actions, and for the same clear reason too, that “the word of God is living in you.” In context, John is referring to Jesus as “the word of God,” so it was Jesus’ words that were being lived in these Christians, and that’s what created their fellowship with him and the strength they had. Or as John put it in 1 John 2:3, “We know we have come to know him (enter into real fellowship with him) if we obey his commands,” because what happens to “anyone who obeys his word,” is that “God’s love,” verse 5, “is truly made complete in him.” And when God’s love happens, creating a love for God and each other in us, “we know we are in him” (5). 

John is talking about how “our fellowship (comes about) with the Father and with his Son” (1:3). It comes from obeying the word or commands of Jesus, which came from the Father (John 12:49-50). And John is adamant on this point: “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 2:4. And in verse 6, “Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus walked.” And Jesus’ walk was always love, which is why John wrote in verse 10, that “whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble.” God’s love in us creates that kind of strength and integrity and stability in us. 

And John was seeing the effect of that love that came from Jesus’ words living in people. A mighty powerful effect it was too, as even young men were “Overcoming the evil one”….(next blog)

For close to sixty years John has been watching the effect of his teaching. He’s watched newly hatched Christians grasp the love of the Father and his Son, enabling them to put their past lives behind them and start afresh, knowing they’re forgiven and forever loved as fully fledged members of God’s family. 

John then watched these same Christians set out on their new lives. John calls them “young men,” but it could be someone of any age who’s well into the next stage of their Christian lives, seeking to live as Jesus lived, 1 John 2:5-6.

They’re growing up well too, because John also writes that they’re growing up “strong,” verse 14, the Greek word meaning “mighty” and “powerful.” They’d entered that stage in a Christian life – pictured in Hebrews 10:32-35 – “when you stood your ground in the face of suffering. Kicked around in public, targets of every kind of abuse – some days it was you, other days your friends. If friends went to prison, you stuck by them. If enemies broke in and seized your goods, you let them go with a smile. Nothing they did bothered you, nothing set you back.”

Just like the apostles who, when flogged in Acts 5:40, “never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ” (42). And when Paul was nearly stoned to death in Lystra in Acts 14:19, a little while later “he got up and went back into the city” (20). These men were unstoppable. There was “nothing in them,” as John phrases it in 1 John 2:10, “that could make them stumble.” 

This was how it was in the early stage of the church, when like typical “young men” they were full of drive and energy. Life was tough at times, and opposition could be severe, but as Paul wrote in Colossians 1:29, “I struggle on with all the energy God gives me, which so powerfully works in me.” Paul had learnt too, that “I can do everything through him who gives me strength,” Philippians 4:13. 

And it was this same strength that John had seen developing in those he’d watched as they too entered this stage of life as a Christian, when life was tough and the world and its influence pressed in on them, but then seeing them come through it in a great show of strength. And it was thrilling to see. But so was the reason for why they had such strength: because “The word of God lives in you”….(next blog)