Day 11 - 1 John 5:1-5 - Born of God

5 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. 2 This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. 3 In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, 4 for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. 5 Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.

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“All you need is love,” are lyrics made famous by the Beatles.  It is a nice thought, and certainly true, but we always must be wary of mis-defining love in fear than it becomes only an emotion and not a decision.  John has emphasized love throughout this letter but is suspicious that this could lead some to eschew action and reduce Christianity to a purely emotional experience. 

To borrow another set of lyrics, love is “more than a feeling.”  John contends that love can be measured and the unit of measurement is obedience.  John will go so far to say that if you really love God then obedience should be natural.  If you love God, you’ll love his children.  If you love the things of God, you’ll naturally want to do godly things.  True love for God creates a being who by their very transformed nature follows the commands of God.  And in this way, doing good is not a burden.

Maybe John is cluing us into some sort of personal evaluation here; some test of our love.  So here it is:  If following God’s commands seem to you to be unduly burdensome then maybe you really haven’t caught on to this love that John has been describing.  The love of God for us should transform us!  We should feel victorious in our lives with God not weighed down! (Notice how John repeats the words “overcome” and “victory”.)  If it’s not that way, then is there a remedy?

There is.  John reminds us of our parentage.  He says we are born of God; God has given us life!  The image of God lives within us and although that image is sometimes tarnished and dull, John believes we all can rediscover it. 

Have you ever polished silver?  For wedding presents some people gave us silverware, the kind with real silver!  It sits in a special box that we get out every so often, but it always seems like when we get it out it’s been tarnished.   So we get the silver polish and in no time it’s as good as new – shining like silver ought to shine!  It doesn’t have to try to shine, it just does because that’s what silver does.

And that’s what Christians do, they shine.  John’s letter can in some sense be seen as the old apostle getting out the silver polish and working out the shine in these dull believers.  He reminds them of what love really is and is confident that when we recall that great love we will reflect the image of our Father!

Shine on!