Jesus Fellowship: Do not believe every spirit. 12/5/15

Day 338

https://www.biblegateway.com/audio/dramatized/niv/1John.4

1 John 4

On Denying the Incarnation

4 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.

4 You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. 5 They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. 6 We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit[a] of truth and the spirit of falsehood.

God’s Love and Ours
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

Supplied Life Devotional by Bill Freeman

December 5th

"Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin." Romans 7:25 (NASV)
Being subjective will always manifest itself in one's life by a stream of condemning thoughts. The real source of condemnation with many people is simply subjectivity. This is the kind of condemnation referred to in Romans 7 and 8 subjective condemnation. A person lives with condemnation because he believes his own feelings and his own state of mind. Thus, he is set up for the accuser of the brethren. If we do not stand with four objective facts Christ, our spirit, the truth, and the Body we are left to the onslaught of condemnation from the enemy. This is because we are identifying with the sin in our flesh. It reacts, it moves, it has its tendencies, and it seeks to act itself out (Rom. 6:12). Paul's description of his subjective state in Romans 7 reveals that there was a fierce struggle going on within his being because he had no objective base to lay hold of. There was no truth, no spirit, no Christ, and no Body. So he ends up with a desperate cry, "O wretched man that I am!" (v. 24). His wretchedness was due to being confined to his own thoughts and emotions. His subjectivity in handling himself resulted in subjective condemnation.
Then Paul bursts forth in Romans 7:25, "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord" (NASV). And again in Romans 8:1- 2 he declares, 1 "There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death" (ASV). These two facts uttered by Paul reveal the way he was delivered from subjective condemnation. When he said, "Through Jesus Christ," coupled with "the law of the Spirit of life... made me free," he disclosed how he was delivered. His deliverance did not come from any experience that he passed through. His deliverance came as a result of moving out of his subjective state into the objective reality of Christ, the spirit, and the truth. Not only did he know himself in Christ, but he also saw that everything now was to be processed through Jesus Christ

Pray Until Something Happens (PUSH)

Anna, Ariana, Ariel, Georgie, Linnette, Wes, and Zoe.