{"id":516,"date":"2017-08-21T06:09:10","date_gmt":"2017-08-21T14:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/?p=516"},"modified":"2017-08-21T06:09:10","modified_gmt":"2017-08-21T14:09:10","slug":"devotion-1-john-212-14-when-the-concrete-cures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/?p=516","title":{"rendered":"Devotion\u00a0\u00a0 1 John 2:12-14\u00a0 When The Concrete Cures"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>1 John 2:12-14 <\/strong>\u2013\u00a01<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">2\u00a0I am writing to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of his name.\u00a0 13\u00a0I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning.\u00a0 I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome\u00a0the evil one.\u00a0 14\u00a0I write to you, dear children, because you know the Father.\u00a0 I write to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning.\u00a0 I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God\u00a0lives in you, and you have overcome the evil one.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>John identifies three stages of growth in Christians:\u00a0 Dear children, young men and fathers.\u00a0 Children are those who are new in the Lord.\u00a0 They are exuberant and excited over the many revelations concerning their spirituality.\u00a0 What they are taught and the shelter they run to, is the knowledge that they are saved through the name of Jesus (<strong>Acts 4:12<\/strong>).<\/p>\n<p>Second these children grow into young adults.\u00a0 The enemy has come against them individually and attacks Christianity in general.\u00a0 These young adults have overcome the evil one.\u00a0 The enemy came to rob, kill and destroy (<strong>John 10:10<\/strong>), but they remain faithful to their God (<strong>Matthew 24:13<\/strong>).\u00a0 What is the knowledge that they have matured with?\u00a0 It is the knowledge that they were taught as spiritual children, that they are saved only by Jesus (<strong>1 Timothy 2:5<\/strong>).\u00a0 They have clung to what they know. We must remember that the name of Jesus is glorified by the person of Jesus Christ and by His work.\u00a0 During His life He was lifted up and identified as the Messiah (<strong>John 1:29<\/strong>).\u00a0 The Messiah lived a perfectly sinless life (<strong>1 Peter 2:22<\/strong>), keeping Himself separated from the ways of the world and so He was the only one suited to be the sacrifice for sin.\u00a0 Jesus lived a sinless life in obedience to the Father (<strong>Philippians 2:8<\/strong>), and because He was being faithful to who He, in very nature, is.\u00a0 He is the Son of God, sin was not in Him.\u00a0 Depending on the Father and the Holy Spirit, He battled to maintain His position.\u00a0\u00a0 He was sinless and unlike the first Adam, He would live His life maintaining His purity.\u00a0 The name of Jesus is associated with the person of Jesus and also what He did.\u00a0 Jesus said of mankind that they could be identified by their fruits (<strong>Matthew 7:15-20<\/strong>).\u00a0 That is, who a person is, what is in His heart, is identified by what He does.\u00a0 The name of Jesus also reveals the nature of Jesus.\u00a0 So we are saved by the person Jesus Christ and by His works.\u00a0 The two are inseparable.\u00a0 The saint, as a child, is taught these basics of the faith.\u00a0\u00a0 These teachings are clung to and are strengthened as the child reads the Word and, as Jesus was, is led by the Spirit of God.\u00a0 Knowing that the Christian is saved and kept only by Jesus and not by self, the young Christian adult has overcome the evil one.<\/p>\n<p>As young Christian adults grow they become spiritually strong. They have learned to reject that attacks against their faith.\u00a0 They become more convinced that they only way of life that means anything of eternal value is to follow Jesus.\u00a0 They grow as they consume and are nourished by the Word of God.\u00a0 As earthly food brings life to earthly bodies so the Word of God nourishes the spirit of Believers.\u00a0 The young adult grows in the Word and becomes strong. \u00a0The enemy attacks all the sons and daughters of God.\u00a0 But they cling to the person and work of Jesus.\u00a0 They grow in the knowledge of their faith as the Word of God is revealed to them by the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 They become saints who fight the fight of faith and vanquish the enemy from their lives.\u00a0 They also come to the aid of their fellow combatants.\u00a0 They understand that an army wins the war not by fighting as individuals with no unified plan, but a victorious army is filled with individuals who fight with the same plan.\u00a0 The plan of the believer is to follow their Lord Jesus and they learn the wisdom and ways that comes from the Word of God and guidance by the Spirit.\u00a0 Herein their knowledge grows and solidifies and they overcome the evil one.<\/p>\n<p>The father in the spirit is one who has been the baby, has been the young adult, and has matured into one who has known, and continues to know, in ever increasing measure.\u00a0 Strength to overcome sin and apostasy is developed by God as one clings to what one knows.\u00a0 We know that we are saved only by the name of Jesus and that we kept only by the name of Jesus.\u00a0\u00a0 The Holy Spirit of God calls us and keeps us.\u00a0 The mature in Christ have come to know Him and His love in ever increasing measure.\u00a0 There comes a point in a believer\u2019s life where doubt of God becomes a fading memory.\u00a0 The mature Christian is confident, is assured, of the goodness and love of God.\u00a0 When they see a tragic thing happen they no longer are tempted to wonder if God is good and if He loves.\u00a0 The mature know that beyond all doubt.\u00a0 The mature realize that we cannot understand all that God is doing.\u00a0 His ways are beyond the ways of men.\u00a0 When trials come, when wickedness is something that seems too hard to endure, they do not doubt the nature, goodness, or love of God.\u00a0 That knowledge has become sacrosanct.\u00a0 That knowledge has become sacrosanct and is unassailable.\u00a0 How did the \u201cfather\u201d in the faith get there?\u00a0 By depending on and walking in the guidance of the Spirit of God and the Word of God.<\/p>\n<p>Knowing God, knowing that He and only He saves us, transforms our faith in God from something elusive and mysterious, to something concrete and unmovable.\u00a0 We remain in Him because we know Him.\u00a0 We know Him because He called us to Him and changed us by His Word and Spirit.\u00a0 Knowing that we are those who fight the fight of faith together, let us love and protect each other.\u00a0 After all, we know God\u2026praise God!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Psalm 150:6<\/strong>\u00a0&#8211;\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.\u00a0 Praise the Lord!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Micah 7:7<\/strong>\u00a0&#8211; <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">But as for me, I watch\u00a0in hope\u00a0for the\u00a0Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear\u00a0me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Micah 6:8<\/strong>\u00a0&#8211;\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">He has shown You, O man, what\u00a0is\u00a0good; And what does the\u00a0Lord\u00a0require of You but to do justly, to love mercy, And to walk humbly with Your God.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>1 John 2:12-14 \u2013\u00a012\u00a0I am writing to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of his name.\u00a0 13\u00a0I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning.\u00a0 I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome\u00a0the evil one.\u00a0 14\u00a0I write to you, dear children,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192],"tags":[366,128,2272,268,497,2266,120,1639,2268,7,1136,62,8,100,13,101,94,2269,90,1871,17,2267,2270,1021,2036,2271,2273,2265],"class_list":["post-516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotion","tag-children","tag-christians","tag-concrete","tag-enemy","tag-evil","tag-exuberant","tag-faithful","tag-fathers","tag-gidance","tag-god","tag-goodness","tag-holy-spirit","tag-jesus","tag-john","tag-love","tag-matthew","tag-micah","tag-overcome","tag-peter","tag-philippians","tag-psalm","tag-purity","tag-sacrosanct","tag-strength","tag-timothy","tag-unassailable","tag-unmovable","tag-young-men"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=516"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":517,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516\/revisions\/517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}