Day 252: Each Day

1 John 3; 2 Chronicles 36; Psalm 90

1 John seems to have two major themes: if Christ is really in your heart, you will stop sinning, and if Christ is really in your heart, you will love others. The way this works is that if Christ is in a person's heart, then they cannot keep sinning because Jesus did not sin. We will not want to sin, we will choose right. This doesn't mean we are perfect, but it means that sin has zero appeal. The second point, which I think is very powerful is the idea that if Christ is in our hearts, we will love others. The whole second half of chapter 3 is an awesome explanation of living and loving in this world because of Christ. John says that we should not be surprised if the people of this world hate us. That just shows that they do not have Jesus in their hearts and are ruled by the devil. However, it is "our love for each other that proves that we have gone from death to life" through Christ. It is our LOVE. It isn't our baptism that shows we have Christ, it isn't our church attendance, our WWJD bracelet...it is our LOVE that shows we belong to Christ. Are we, as Christians, truly living a life of love? The author states that "we must give our lives for each other" just as Christ gave his life for us. Life has to be more about loving others than loving ourselves. When we love extravagantly, we draw closer to God and prove that we belong to Jesus. And as mentioned in a recent post, love isn't an emotion, it is ACTION.

The people of Judah choose to disobey God despite the examples in the past of both good and poor leaders. God's patience runs out and so he allows Judah to be completely destroyed and the people captured as slaves. What is interesting is that these last few kings and the people of the city who  disobey end up in chains. The idea is that if a person isn't following The Lord, they aren't free, they are bound by their enemies. The same is metaphorically (or even literally) true today. When we don't follow God, we are bound, trapped, chained by whatever it is that wants to hurt us, destroy us--our enemy. In God, there is freedom.

This psalm talks about how short life is and how powerful God is. Our life is but a breath in the span of eternity. The psalmist cries out to The Lord to "teach us to use wisely all the time we have." It's not completely depressing though, because we are to celebrate each moment that we DO have on this earth: "When morning comes, let your love satisfy all our needs. Then we can celebrate and be glad for what time we have left." A healthy dose of humility for how momentary our lives are will help us to make better choices and live not for this life, but for the next.