Thursday, August 15,
2013, 9:02 a.m. – the Lord Jesus woke me with the song “I Pray for Them” playing in my mind this morning. Speak, Lord, for
your servant is listening. I read 3 John
(ESV): http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=3+John+1&version=ESV
No Greater Joy!
The
elder to the beloved Gaius, whom I love in truth.
Beloved,
I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, as it
goes well with your soul. For I rejoiced greatly when the brothers came and
testified to your truth, as indeed you are walking in the truth. I have no
greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.
Amen! I agree wholeheartedly! I have no greater joy than to
know that those whom I love are walking in the truth of the gospel of Jesus
Christ, our Lord and Savior. So, what does it mean to “walk in the truth”? To “walk”
in this sense has to do with conducting our lives in a particular way or manner
(Encarta Dictionary). Truth is light, it is love, it is God, it is Jesus
Christ, it is the word of God, it is the gospel of salvation, and it is the
opposite of darkness, lies, deceptions, manipulations, half-truths and evil and
sinful deeds of the flesh. So, to walk in the truth is to conduct our lives
(our lifestyles) in the way of truth – in action, deed, thought and in speech.
And, it is to live our lives in every way by the truth of God’s word, the
teachings of Christ, and the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ, God the Son, laid down his life for us on the
cross in taking upon himself the sins of the entire world so that we could be
free from eternal damnation, free from bondage to (the control of) sin and
Satan daily, and so we could be free to live and to walk in Christ’s
righteousness, truth and holiness, in his power and strength within us. When he
died, our sins died with him. When he rose from the dead, our sins remained
buried in the ground. Yet, not everyone is saved from their sins.
Jesus said we have to repent of (turn from; have a change of
mind and heart with regard to) sin if we want to have eternal life with God. He
said we have to obey him and his teachings if we want to have him and the
Father living within us, and if we want to have a home with them in eternity
and to be in genuine relationship with God/Jesus. He said that if we want to
come after him, we must deny (disallow) ourselves (our self-lives) and we must
take up our cross daily (die daily to sin and self) and follow (obey) him. He
said if we want to live, we have to die first. That is the crux of the gospel.
Jesus died so we would be free from slavery to sin, so how can we live in it
any longer? He said the two don’t mix.
So, to walk in truth means to turn from our lives of sin and
living for self and self-pleasure, to be transformed in heart and mind of the
Spirit of God in regeneration (new birth; new life), and to put on (apply to
our daily lives) our new lives in Christ Jesus, “created to be like Christ in
true righteousness and holiness” (See Eph. 4:17-24). It means to walk in
obedience to Christ and to his teachings. It does not mean sinless perfection,
but it does mean a change in attitude and purpose and will of mind and heart
away from a life of sin toward living for Jesus Christ in obedience to his will
and purposes for our lives. It means cooperating with God in his work of
regeneration and sanctification in our lives, humbly submitting to and doing
his will. It means, too, that we share this new life with others through
personal testimony and through the sharing of the truth of the gospel of Jesus
Christ so that others may be saved. As well, it means living and speaking the
truth.
A Faithful Thing
Beloved,
it is a faithful thing you do in all your efforts for these brothers, strangers
as they are, who testified to your love before the church. You will do well to
send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God. For they have gone out
for the sake of the name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles. Therefore we
ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the
truth.
We are commended by God not only for walking in the truth,
but also for how we treat his true servants and messengers. I am not speaking
here of everyone who calls himself a minister of the gospel or a prophet of
God, for there are many deceivers, hypocrites, liars and fakers out there, as
well as there are those who are followers of humans and humanistic philosophy
more than they are followers of God and the teachings of his word. And, there
are many of those who are diluting the gospel of Jesus Christ and are thus
giving people a false hope, which is a lie, and which condemns them to hell. We
are warned against such people in scripture, and we are called upon to be
discerning, to test everything we hear against scripture (against the teachings
of Christ and of the apostles), and to not follow those or support those who
are not teaching what is in line with the truth.
These “brothers” on the other hand were commended for their
faithfulness and their adherence to the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
and to truth in general, as well as were Gaius and Demetrius. They were
messengers of the Lord Jesus and of his gospel, and they “went out” for the
sake of His Name. They may have been missionaries, or they may have been
traveling messengers of God sent to the churches to give words of prophecy and
exhortation. They may have gone out due to persecution and so they fled to
other places. They appear to have reported back to John, so he may have sent
them to check on the churches and their progress and to report back to him,
since he could not be there personally in every location. Whatever their duty
or their calling is not exactly stated other than that went out for the sake of
the Name of Jesus and his gospel of truth. We should thus support and encourage
such people as these who are true ministers of the gospel.
Puts Himself First
I
have written something to the church, but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself
first, does not acknowledge our authority. So if I come, I will bring up what
he is doing, talking wicked nonsense against us. And not content with that, he
refuses to welcome the brothers, and also stops those who want to and puts them
out of the church.
There are many who call themselves ministers of the gospel
of Jesus Christ who give the name of Christ a bad rep. Diotrephes was one such
leader. He was self-centered, self-focused, driven by personal goals and
visions, perhaps; unsubmissive to God’s authority, a gossip and slanderer, a
worker of iniquity, a persecutor of God’s true servants and messengers, a disunifier,
a troublemaker, and one who likes to stir up dissension for his own advantage.
There are many such leaders in our churches in America today, I believe.
The church in America, for the most part, has become a
business just like any other business, and is marketed much in the same way.
The goal is to please the customer, i.e. the people of the world, so the
customer will keep coming back for more. Meetings are often very entertainment
focused and driven, and the gospel is diluted in order to make it more
appealing and acceptable to the world. The church has become so much like the
world, it is barely distinguishable any more. So many church leaders follow the
gospel according to man, marketing schemes and business techniques over and
above the teachings of Christ and the truth of the gospel.
So, in some cases, the church actually becomes the greatest
persecutor of those who are Christ’s true servants and witnesses, for some
church leaders do kick these servants of Christ out of their churches - because
they are trained to do so, and because these true servants of the Lord serve as
a threat to these leaders’ positions of power and control, and they serve as a
threat to their man-made institutions, visions, goals and watered-down gospel,
i.e. to their lies, manipulations and deceptions. Not only do these leaders in
today’s church, like Diotrephes, mistreat God’s true servants and witnesses,
and not only do they put them out of the church, but they encourage their
people to treat them in like manner. This sounds just like what happened to
Jesus Christ, and at the hand of his own people, of his own faith, and coming
from and encouraged by his faith’s own hypocritical leaders.
Imitate the Good
Beloved,
do not imitate evil but imitate good. Whoever does good is from God; whoever
does evil has not seen God. Demetrius has received a good testimony from
everyone, and from the truth itself. We also add our testimony, and you know
that our testimony is true.
So, the encouragement to us here is first of all to be
discerning about what is evil and what is good. So many present evil as good
and good as evil, and so many Christians and church people are following their
lead, and that breaks God’s heart (he grieves over this). We need to study the
word of God and know what it says so we can discern error and lies for what
they are. And, we need to walk in the truth and not give our support and
loyalty to those who are not walking in the truth, but who are like Diotrephes,
and are actually opposing those who are walking in the truth. We need to be
careful about what we are imitating and make sure we know the truth so that we
can truly walk in (follow) the truth.
I Pray for Them /
An Original Work / June 4, 2013
Based off John 17
“Glorify Your Son,
that Your Son
May glorify our God in
heav’n.
Father, You granted
Him all power
And all authority over
men,
That He might give
eternal life
To all those whom now
You have given Him.”
“This now then is
eternal life:
That they may know
You,
Father, and Your Son;
That they may know the
only true God,
And Jesus Christ whom
the Father sent.
I have brought You the
glory by
Finishing the work
that You’ve given Me.”
“I have shown You to
those whom
You gave to Me out of
the world;
They were Yours. You
gave them to Me
And they have obeyed
Your words
And they accepted
them. They knew
That I came from You,
and they believed
With certainty, I was
sent.”
“Holy Father, I pray
for them by the
Power of Your name:
Protect them,
So that they may be
one as we are,
For they are still
living in this world.
I have given them Your
word;
Because of Your word,
the world
Has hated them.”
“I pray they may have
the full measure of
My joy now living
within them.
Father, I pray You
sanctify them
By Your word; truly
Your word is truth.
As You sent Me into
the world,
I send them to tell
the world to repent.”
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