Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Sunday, May 17tth, 2015---Newness of Life:Live God's Testimony

1 John 5: 6-13 talks a lot about the words "testimony" and "testify." These words carry large weights in the world of courtrooms and congressional hearing rooms. When testifying or giving a testimony, witnesses must swear to "tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God." These witnesses give evidence. They prepare statements. They prepare proof of their testimony and their witness to a truth that they attempt to convince others of.  Then, their testimony is challenged, refuted, and subjected to what others testify as true.

Each witness, defendant, and prosecutor inevitably will have some angle, some bias, some sort of agenda in giving, challenging, and hearing these testimonies. The testing of a witness involves probing their testimony for inconsistencies, discrepancies, and different interpretations of what it testified. This is all done because the goal for these cases is to reach an objective ruling based on the facts, removed from any bias, emotion, perception, or agenda.

The author of 1 John seems to have a similar process in mind when it comes to our testimony, our witness to the truth. Other "truths" or "spirits" must be "tested" so that it may be determined that what they say represents Jesus' truth.

The truth we testify is that God has saved us through Jesus Christ. This testimony is not one that is thoroughly laid out in a courtroom, but known in our hearts and expressed through our lives. We have eternal life through Jesus. This is not an opinion; this is the truth. How will we "prove" it? Talking about it is not enough; talking about this truth is only a portion of the way in which it is testified: the majority of this testimony is expressed through our actions, our behaviors, the way in which we love God and love others. In this way, love is the language in which we testify to the truth of God's salvation through Jesus Christ to the world.


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