“ Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:12-13).
“Whoever has the Son has life;”
Who is this referring to?
“Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith” (1 John 5:1-4).
1 John 5:13 is referring to those who obey. If you don’t believe, you won’t obey. If you do believe, you will obey.
Are you obeying God? If not, you don’t believe. (Trying to comfort yourself with Bible verses that don’t apply to you will not help you; though they may give you a false sense of security.)
“...to hold a thing with the intellect, is not to believe it. A man’s real belief is that which he lives by;” - George MacDonald
If this is true, how can any of us be sure that one day we will enjoy being with God in his new creation?
“That is why we labor and strive, because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, and especially of those who believe.
Command and teach these things” (1 Tim 4:10-11).
Do you believe that God can use you in his plan to reconcile the world to himself? If so, do what he says.*
* Peter told the people to repent and be baptised for the forgiveness of sins (see Acts 2:38). By being baptised they were publicly declaring allegiance to the Messiah, the rightful King. This was their first act of obedience.
“It is the one terrible heresy of the church, that it has always been presenting something else than obedience as faith in Christ. The work of Christ is not the Working Christ, any more than the clothing of Christ is the body of Christ. If the woman who touched the hem of his garment had trusted in the garment and not in him who wore it, would she have been healed? And the reason that so many who believe about Christ rather than in him, get the comfort they do, is that, touching thus the mere hem of his garment, they cannot help believing a little in the live man inside the garment” (George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons ).
The Obedience That Comes From Faith