So far this week, we have looked at divine love and eternal life from the perspective of Christ’s disciples. John was an eyewitness to the power the Messiah brought to change hearts and renew minds. No religion has ever been able to influence this kind of radical change to the soul of human beings; we must be born of the Spirit who is Truth and raised from spiritual death. John himself was changed by the Anointed Truth; so he spoke and wrote from a personal place of experiential knowledge. However, when we have embraced the Spirit of Truth, the enemy begins to lay a series of spiritual traps/lies in order to bring confusion and chaos to the soul. We cannot open the door or we leave our hearts and minds unguarded to the lies!
I shudder sometimes at how humanity, as a whole, really loves to connect themselves with the enemy’s spiritual lies. Satan is the father of lies and he is very cunning and convincing (Gen 3:1). I understand the temptation, because the Spirit of Truth is very convicting and uncomfortable when we want to see things from a fleshly perspective. Yet, as children of God, we need to know and experience life from Christ’s perspective who was fully human and fully divine and now whose Spirit lives in believers. Jesus is a complete picture or example of human life in a righteous relationship with Father God and in the power of the Spirit (Luke 4:18). Since the resurrection, believers are partakers in the spiritual incarnation of Christ; he lives in and through our bodies.
Although John’s testimony and writings to the Church [people of God throughout all generations] is extremely helpful to us as we learn to discern the Truth from lies, Jesus himself claimed to be the Son of God who served the Father as the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father unless it is through the Son (John 14:6). The spirit of antichrist was present with the first disciples and is present now.
One day the spirit of antichrist will accumulate in one evil human being; John calls him the Antichrist. So, let’s restate the Truth: Christians are those who repent from sin, deny themselves, place Christ—the Son of God—on the throne of their hearts knowing it is through his mercy (shed blood for our sin) and grace (work of the Spirit of Truth) that we have eternal life with God. Anything else, is a lie.
1 John 2:18-25 NLT Warning about Antichrists
18 Dear children, the last hour is here. You have heard that the Antichrist is coming, and already many such antichrists have appeared. From this we know that the last hour has come. 19 These people left our churches, but they never really belonged with us; otherwise they would have stayed with us. When they left, it proved that they did not belong with us.
20 But you are not like that, for the Holy One has given you his Spirit [Christ’s anointing] and all of you know the truth. 21 So I am writing to you not because you don’t know the truth but because you know the difference between truth and lies. 22 And who is a liar? Anyone who says that Jesus is not the Christ. Anyone who [habitually] denies the Father and the Son is an antichrist [the enemy/antagonist of Christ]. 23 Anyone who denies the Son doesn’t have the Father, either. But anyone who acknowledges the Son has the Father also.
24 So you must remain faithful to what you have been taught from the beginning. If you do, you will remain in fellowship with the Son and with the Father. 25 And in this fellowship we enjoy the eternal life he promised us.
Prayer: Lord, thank you for the discernment to know the Truth from lies. We can know this in the divine spiritual realm, as well as the human natural realm, because Jesus was both and has become our Wisdom. Thank you for protecting us by the Truth. May we guard our hearts to continue to live in the Truth. In Jesus’ name. Amen.