Living In-Between

2 Questions

1. How does Jesus want us to live in the in-between of His first and second coming? And

2. What means, what resources, does He provide for us to do so?

1John 1:1-4 NLT
We proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning, whom we have heard and seen. We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands. He is the Word of life. This one who is life itself was revealed to us, and we have seen him. And now we testify and proclaim to you that he is the one who is eternal life. He was with the Father, and then he was revealed to us. We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. ⁴ We are writing these things so that you may fully share our joy.

John’s 4 Reasons

1. so that he would have fellowship with the people he was writing to (1 John 1:3)

2. so that their joy would be full (1 John 1:4)

3. so that they would know they have eternal life (1 John 5:13) and

4. so that they would not sin (1 John 2:1)

1John 1:5-7 NLT
This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all.  So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth. But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.

3 Resources

1. His Word

2. Fellowship

3. Confession

1 John 1:6-7 (NLT)
So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth. But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.

1 John 1:8-10 (NLT)
If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. ⁹ But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. ¹⁰ If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts.

 “One might well expect John to situate the efficacy of confession in the virtue of the act itself. But he grounds it rather in the nature of God.”
-Robert Yarbrough

 “Christ’s cleansing tends towards eradication of sin, not dismissal of it in the sense that the sinner is exonerated in the very thing he or she claims to be acknowledging as wrong but at heart refuses to forsake. God’s righteousness, when accessed by human contrition, is transformative.”
-Robert Yarbrough