Beloved

Propitiation or abomination…?

Love or lie…?

Abide or cast aside…?

Confess or regress…?

Perfect or reject…?

Reading 1 John 4 tonight, I started thinking and pausing. Yeah, I over thunk again! (My wife says I'm never funny--true!) 

If this were in a Psalm, I would put a Selah after each simple phrase. (That's why I put  the dots in, it made the spell/grammar check stop going off.) 

Selah

Really no one seems to even know what Selah means today--biblical scholars, as I looked for the definition, everywhere said, "unknown.".  I've heard it suggested that it means: stop and meditate. In context, It think it's right, pause the music and song. Just wait.

I started to get all musically technical. That would show off my ignorance. So, perhaps Selah is musical and is comparative to breaks in music phrases. It’s like that uncomfortable wait time in music where a conductor holds back a whole symphony in anticipation of the music starting again. But that doesn't seem right.

There is a difference in that we stop and let the words sink in; let them melt in your mouth and seep into your mind. Look for the connections and pause. Meditate on the words of God you just heard!

Try to figure out what is being said, below the surface, but don't ignore what is on top.

If Selah means stop and meditate or sit and reflect awhile, we should do that with all the passages that grab us or convict us. We can easily read over the letters and words. Yet, how do the words relate to you? What are you going to do about it, Gordon? How are going to live it out? How are you going to love one another?

(Here is a rant of explanation, for the opener)

Are we going to accept the propitiation of Jesus work? It’s a big word isn't it? My memory isn't what it used to be, so I looked it up. In short order, simplified for me, (as I interpret this) it means: Christs' act of removing our sin, which makes us acceptable and approved by the Father.

The grace of Christ offers that covering, that perfecting work of Jesus is what makes us acceptable to our Father in Heaven! 

The opposite is the abomination. It’s that spirit of anti-Christ saying, “Jesus didn't really come in the flesh.”  That spirit lies through out the world saying, “Jesus isn't the only way to God.” Or it says, “You’re a good person.” It says. “There are many ways to heaven. Jesus isn't the only way.”

The spirit of anti-Christ tells us we are self-sufficient; we can do good works and get into Heaven. And in our day, it just tells us, “There is nothing else, we just die and it’s over. There is no heaven.” 
L I E S!

Various versions of the lies of anti-Christ flood our world and seep into our minds everyday. All of them led back to the lie that Jesus didn't need flesh. The lie says, "Jesus' spirit is here, but not with a  body. He didn't really suffer and die."

The love or lie? Are you going to accept that God loves us so much He offered His Son? He offers forgiveness and the removal of our sin, will you accept this love? Or are you going to believe the lie?

Why do I preach to the choir and myself so oft'? I need the reminder and I let anyone who will listen come along.

" Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.  By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.  Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them.  We are from God.Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.  Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.  In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.  In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.  Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us.If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother."

1 John 4 ESV