In Matthew 10:16, Jesus tells His disciples to be “wise as serpents, but innocent as doves.” Sometimes, we focus on the latter and forget the former. In the opening of John 4, John calls the church to “test the spirits to see whether they are from God.” He is calling the church to wise action,…

In 1 John 3:4-10, John addressed the difference between those who are the children of God and those who are the children of the devil. This week, he continues with that theme. But rather than speaking generally about it as “sin,” vs. “righteousness,” he speaks specifically about it as “hate” vs. “love.” The mark of…

In the previous passage, John marveled at the love of God that would see us become “children of God.” In this passage, John presses into the fact that being children of God gives us a new nature – a nature that must take on the characteristics of the Father and His Son. John says very…