013 Kernels of Wheat – The Love Meter

• “If anyone sins,” not when.  For a Christian who is walking in the Light, living in the profferred communion with God, sin is a rarity, rather than a perpetual inevitability.
• Jesus is presented as:
• Our Parakletos, that is, our legal Advocate for when we offend.
• Same word used of the Holy Spirit in John 14:16,26; 15:26; 16:7
• Our hilasmos, that is, our perfect sacrifice, our propitiation for sin.
• The verse from O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing (or, more properly, Hymn to Be Sung on the Anniversary of One’s Conversion):

See all your sins on Jesus laid;
The Lamb of God was slain.
His soul was once an offering made
For every soul of man.

• Proper acknowledgement of His holy sacrifice leads us to love Jesus and hate sin, rather than using Jesus as a cover to continue sinning.

• The modern church is radiating the wrong message.
• Everybody sins all the time, and there’s no solution for it in this life other than “trying harder.”
• Lordship is either optional or “later.”
• This runs the other way from the Gospel message:
• The confession that leads to salvation–not “Jesus is Savior,” but “Jesus is Lord.” (Romans 10:9)
• Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.  (Romans 10:13; also Acts 2:21 and Joel 2:32)
• “Why do you call Me Lord, Lord, and not do what I say?” (Luke 6:46) [Note: I think I mistakenly gave this out in the podcast as “Matthew 6:46.”]
• “Lord” — the address of a subject to a King, of a slave to a Master
• 1 John 2:3–If we know God, we obey Him.
• 1 John 2:4–If we say that we know God, that is, if we call ourselves “Christians,” but we don’t obey, then…
• We are liars.
• The Truth isn’t in us.
• 1 John 2:5–Obedient Christians prove their love for God by what they do, not necessarily what they think or feel.
• John’s teaching on these lines comes straight from Jesus:
• John 14:15—If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.
• John 14:21–Whoever has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.
• John 14:23—If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.
• The word translated as home or abode or dwelling place is mone in the Greek = a staying, a room, an abode.
• The verbal form is meno (menein in the infinitive) = abide, remain, continue, settle down. We will encounter this word in an interesting context later in chapter 2.
• Exactly the same word is in John 14:2–In My Father’s house are many monai (plural of mone; that is, in My Father’s house are many abiding places.
• Not “mansions,” as in the King James; the root of mansion –> Latin mansio (a remaining, a staying, a night quarters, a station) –> Latin manere (to stay, to abide) –> Greek menein (to abide, to remain, to continue, etc.)
• “Mansions” is still used in places in Gr eat Britain to describe “a block of flats” (i.e., an apartment building).
• This is yet another depiction of intimate communion with the Godhead:
• Jesus has created not a future “mansion,” but an eternal “room” or abiding place (mone) in God Himself (14:2).
• If we walk in obedience, the Father and the Son make Their room / home / abiding place inside of us.
• [If you must think of mone as a “mansion,” then let that motivate you to make the John 14:23 mone of the Father and Son in your heart as a “mansion” of love and obedience and devotion, for a Lord deserves to live in a great house!]
• John 14:24–Whoever does not love Me does not keep My words. And the word that you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me.
• It doesn’t get any simpler than this:
• If you love, you obey.  If you obey, then you love.
• If you don’t obey, you don’t love.  If you don’t love, you don’t obey.
• Even a child can understand it!
• Other verses on similar lines
• Acts 5:32–receiving the Holy Spirit is conditional on obedience.
• Hebrew 5:9–eternal salvation is for all those who “obey Him.”
• 1 Corinthians 7:19–keeping the commandments, not outward forms and ceremonies, is what God considers important.

What’s the reading on your “love meter”?