Friday, March 28, 2025
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: 1 John 2-3
Key Verse
1 John 2:27 — “But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.”
Devotional Thought
John writes as a father to his “little children,” and the tenderness of that address carries through every line of these two chapters. He is an old man now, the last of the apostles, writing to churches scattered across Asia Minor who faced false teachers denying that Jesus had come in the flesh. Some had already walked away from the fellowship. John names them plainly: “They went out from us, but they were not of us.” He does not soften the warning, yet he never stops speaking as a shepherd. He wants them to sin not—but if they do, he points immediately to the advocate, Jesus Christ the righteous, the propitiation not for their sins only but for the whole world.
The heart of the passage is the test of love. John sets it before us with stark simplicity: whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is in darkness still. He reaches back to Cain, who slew his brother because his own works were evil and his brother’s righteous, and he brings it forward to the ordinary believer sitting in a congregation. Love is not a feeling to be discussed; it is bread given to a hungry brother, a life laid down for the brethren. “Let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.” The one who abides in Christ walks as Christ walked, and Christ walked toward the cross.
Here in late March, as winter loosens its grip and the church moves toward the solemnity of Good Friday and the joy of Easter, John’s words about the “last time” and the coming of Christ feel near. We too live between the already and the not yet. We know we are sons of God now, but “it doth not yet appear what we shall be.” The antichrists of John’s day denied the Son; ours often simply ignore Him, or reduce Him to a moral teacher. Against every seduction, John says: abide. Let what you heard from the beginning remain in you.
And when our hearts condemn us—for they will—John offers a strange and beautiful comfort: “God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.” He does not tell us to silence our conscience but to bring it before a Father who is greater than it. The Spirit He has given us is the evidence of our abiding. So we purify ourselves, not to earn sonship, but because we have it, and because the One who will appear is pure, and we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.
Reflection
- John says the one who hates his brother “walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth.” Is there a brother or sister I have quietly written off—and what would it look like this week to love them “in deed and in truth” rather than in word only?
- When my heart condemns me, do I flee from God or run to the advocate He has provided? What would it change in my praying to genuinely believe that God is greater than my heart?
Prayer
Father, we come as little children who have been called Your sons, not by our deserving but by the love You bestowed upon us in Christ. Thank You for the Advocate with You, Jesus Christ the righteous, who is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but for the whole world. When our hearts condemn us, remind us that You are greater than our hearts and know all things. Teach us to abide in Him, to walk as He walked, and to love our brethren in deed and in truth, not in word only. Keep us from the love of the world that passes away, and let the anointing we have received remain in us, that when He shall appear we may have confidence and not be ashamed before Him at His coming. Amen.