Today’s passage: 2 John 4-9
Helpful thoughts:
- Loving God, loving people, keeping God’s commandments all go hand in hand. One cannot be done without doing the other.
- “Watch yourselves” is a call to vigilance. We want to run our race well and sprint across the finish line!
- The best way to identify what is false is to be an expert in what is true.
- There are those who preach and teach false doctrines and/or there are those who live false testimonies of conversion. Both the teaching and the living are to be in accord with the teachings of Christ.
Questions to consider:
- How does John’s rejoicing in that some of the elect lady’s children believed and were walking in truth inform our posture towards our children’s faith? Should we expect them all to believe and be angered when any of them do not? Or, should we remember the natural condition of their hearts and rejoice when any of them do believe?
- What is the difference between obedience inspired by love and compliance inspired by self-interest? How could both look the same on the outside? How easy is it to shift back to self-interest? What truths can compel us to move toward obedience inspired by love (Hint: 2 Corinthians 3:18)?
- When we look into our motives like this, we might tend toward despair (“Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” – Romans 7:24). Why was the Apostle Paul right to answer this question with, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”? Why are we the children of God? Why and how are we growing progressively in following Christ, even for the right reasons?