The Word for today:
1 John 2:28-3:10
1 John 2:28-3:10
mark this: 1 John 2:23 --
No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also.
No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also.
We are led to believe that many things are in the Bible --"somewhere in there"--which are not in the Bible at all.
One of these notions is called the universal Fatherhood of God. We're told that "we are all children of God." Nothing could be further from the truth.
The Bible teaches that the LORD God is everyone's Creator.
But God is not your Father until you have been re-created (born again) through personal faith in Jesus Christ:
He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. (John 1:11-12)
He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. (John 1:11-12)
The Pharisees told Jesus,
"We have one Father--even God."
"We have one Father--even God."
Jesus told them,
"You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him." (John 8:41-44; see Matthew 13:38.)
"You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him." (John 8:41-44; see Matthew 13:38.)
Our passage today makes a sharp distinction between those who are the children of God, and those who are the children of the devil. (1 John 3:10)
Perhaps you've heard a million times about how we are all God's children. But you won't find that idea in the Bible--no, not once.
And we can say "Our Father who art in heaven" until we are blue in the face and the cows come home--but it doesn't mean we're God's children.
God becomes our Father only when--only if--we turn in faith to His Son:
No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. (1 John 2:23)
No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. (1 John 2:23)
Satan, whom Jesus calls the father of lies (John 8:44), wants us to believe in the universal fatherhood of God, in the universal brotherhood of man. And he's got most of the world convinced that it says so, right in the Bible.
Satan disowns his children because he understands that if the truth were known, his children might disown him.
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