Category: Faith in the Struggle

1 John 4:19 We love because He first loved us. I knew, when I met my wife, that she was the one.  I was just absolutely convinced that she was the woman I was going to marry.  She did not reciprocate this sentiment.  For seven years.  For seven years, I pursued. When she did begin…
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1 John 4:18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. In my addiction, I lived in constant fear.  Fear of daylight.  Fear of discovery.  I lost many hours of sleep to the terror of…
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1 John 4:16 God is love… I tend to think in black and white.  I can comprehend that something has more than one dimension, but it takes effort for me to do it.  It is my first impulse to embrace a single aspect of almost everything.  So when I read that God is love, I…
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1 John 4:1,2 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God… By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. I am, at times, a little slow to hear God’s voice.  Sometimes,…
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1 John 3:11,15,18 …We should love one another… Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer… let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. At times, the bible reads like a broken record, repeating certain ideas over and over.  As my blog is just walking through the bible, it…
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1 John 3:4-9 No one who abides in him keeps on sinning… Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil… No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God.  Since I started this…
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1 John 3:1 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God. I am a pastor’s kid so I knew, growing up, that my father owned the church and was the boss of everyone in it (at least I was pretty sure it worked that…
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1 John 2:28 …Abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. In my worst destruction, I identified very well with Adam and Eve, hiding in the garden. I do not think that God ever turned his back on me but I…
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1 John 2:18,22 (The) antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist… I am spiritual. I believe in God. I just don’t see the need for Jesus. It is not uncommon to hear this from those who…
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1 John 2:15,16 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is…
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